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THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF 
ST. PAUL 



Works by the Same Author 

THE DAYS OF HIS FLESH: The Earthly 
Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. 

THE ATONEMENT IN THE LIGHT OF 
HISTORY AND THE MODERN SPIRIT. 

MAN'S NEED OF GOD. 

THE FEAST OF THE COVENANT. 

THE HISTORIC JESUS. 

THE UNWRITTEN SAYINGS OF OUR 

LORD. 

CHRISTIAN COUNSEL. 

A LEGEND OF BETHLEHEM. 

A LEGEND OF JERUSALEM 



LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON 



THE LIFE AND LETTERS 



OF 



ST. PAUL 



BY THE REV. 

DAVID SMITH, M.A., D.D. 

PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE M'CREA MAGEE COLLEGE, LONDONDERRY 

Author of "In the Days of His Flesh," "Man's Need of God," etc. 




new ^tar' YORK 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



mm 

HAY 2£ m 



^> ST 






Printed in the United States of America 



TO 

MY MOTHER AND SISTERS 



PREFACE 

It is now some thirteen years since, shortly after the appear- 
ance of my first book The Days of His Flesh : the Earthly 
Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I undertook the 
task of preparing a Life of St. Paul ; and during the interval 
much has happened to delay its execution. When I under- 
took it, I was minister in the remote Scottish parish of 
Tulliallan ; and presently, toward the close of the year 1907, 
I was translated to St. Andrew's Church in the Perthshire 
town of Blairgowrie, where I ministered for two happy years. 
The employments of that large and delightful charge en- 
grossed my time and taxed my scanty strength, leaving 
me small leisure ; all the less that my service in preaching 
was widely requisitioned, and I was continually engaged in 
the ministry of my British Weekly Correspondence. Then, 
quite unexpectedly, I was invited by the General Assembly 
of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland to occupy the Chair 
of Theology in the Londonderry College. Reluctant though 
I was to leave a people whom I loved and a ministry so rich 
and glad and venture among strangers and untried responsi- 
bilities, I could not but recognise the voice of God in an 
urgent call addressed to me not only without solicitation on 
my part but despite my express will ; and now, as I review 
my experience, I bless His gracious providence and thank- 
fully acknowledge the goodness and mercy which have 
attended me and mine since our coming here. 

Amid these changes and ever fresh employments, including 
the production of various lesser books and the delivery of a 

course of lectures in the United States of America (published 

▼a 



viii LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

under the title The Historic Jesus), my preparation of the 
Life of St. Paul was much retarded. And then, when it was 
nearing completion, its appearance was arrested by the 
catastrophe of the war. Perhaps, however, advantage has 
accrued from the protracted delay. The task has never 
been absent from my thoughts even when I was not directly 
engaged upon it. The figure of the Apostle has assumed 
ever clearer shape in my mind ; his surroundings have fallen 
into truer perspective ; and my narrative depicts him more 
simply as I have seen him, less confused than it might other- 
wise have been by multitudinous details and less encumbered 
by elaborate discussions. Its imperfections, as I am pain- 
fully conscious, are indeed manifold, but it is the natural 
outgrowth of long and loving reflection ; and with the old 
historian of the Maccabees 1 would say : * If I have written 
well and to the point, this is what I myself desired ; but if 
meanly and indifferently, this is all I could attain unto.' 

The Pauline literature is enormous, and a mere enumera- 
tion of the writers who have made me their debtor, would 
much increase the dimensions of a work already large 
enough to incur the censure of that aphorism of Callima- 
chus : fieya fiifSkiov, fieya tca/cdv. There are, however, several 
whom it were ingratitude to leave unnamed. First, in the 
ancient Church there is St. Chrysostom, that prince of 
preachers and master of exegesis ; and not unworthy to 
stand near him is that anonymous Latin scholar of the 
fourth century who, because his Commentaries on the 
Pauline Epistles have been preserved among the Works of 
St. Ambrose of Milan, is known as ' the Ambrosiaster,' and 
who, on the evidence of St. Augustine (cf. Contra Duas 
Efiist. Pelag., iv. 7), was Hilary, whether St. Hilary of 
Poictiers or the less celebrated Hilary the Deacon. Of 
works belonging to the Post-Reformation period there are 
three which have yielded me continual profit and delight : 
(1) the Annotationes of Hugo Grotius (Huig van Groot), 
which derives a pathetic interest from the circumstance that 



PREFACE ix 

it was one of the tasks which employed its brilliant and 
versatile author during the years of his imprisonment ; 
(2) the Synopsis Criticorum of Matthew Poole, that scholar 
of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who espoused the cause 
of Presbyterianism, and composed his monumental work in 
five folio volumes after his ejectment from his charge for 
Nonconformity in 1662 ; and (3) the Novum Testamentum 
GrcBcum of Johann Jakob Wetstein with its profusion of 
Classical, Rabbinical, and Patristic illustrations of the 
sacred text. Of modern literature it were invidious to 
speak particularly, but I must mention, with peculiar 
appreciation, those enduring monuments of English scholar- 
ship, the works of the late Bishop Lightfoot, especially his 
editions of the Pauline Epistles ; the Acta Apostolorum of 
Dr. Friedrich Blass ; the numerous writings of Sir William 
Ramsay ; and Kirsopp Lake's Earlier Epistles of St. Paul. 

Of late years archaeological investigation has revolutionised 
our conception of the language of the New Testament and 
disclosed a fresh significance and beauty in the literary 
monuments of the Christian revelation. The difficulty 
which the language of the sacred writers has hitherto pre- 
sented is that it differs widely from that of the ' profane ' 
authors of the period, such as Plutarch and Lucian, whose 
Greek, apart from various peculiarities, follows the Attic 
model ; and two diverse explanations formerly prevailed. 
One minimised the peculiarities of the Greek of the New 
Testament and laboured to prove it excellent Attic ; while 
the other rather emphasised them and alleged that the Greek 
of the sacred writers was a unique language, formed mainly 
under the influence of the Hebrew Scriptures and fitly 
designated, in Rothe's phrase, ' the language of the Holy 
Ghost.' The truth has been revealed by recent investigation 
of the ruins of antiquity, especially in Egypt. The rubbish- 
heap of the buried city of Oxyrhynchus has yielded a multi- 
tude of papyrus leaves (published by the Egypt Exploration 
Fund under the skilful editorship of Dr. Grenfell and Dr. 



x LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Hunt). Some are fragments of ancient books, but most 
are private letters and kindred documents ; and it is these 
that are so instructive (cf. the late Dr. J. H. Moulton's 
Prolegomena to his Grammar of New Testament Greek ; Dr. 
Adolf Deissmann's Light from the Ancient East ; Dr. George 
Milligan's Greek Papyri). They are non-literary ; their 
language is the Kocvrj or Common Greek, the lingua franca of 
that period ; and the significant fact is that the language of 
the papyri is the language of the New Testament. Hence it 
appears that there is in reality no such thing as ■ New 
Testament Greek.' What has hitherto borne that appel- 
lation is nothing else than the language of common inter- 
course in use throughout the Roman Empire ; and the 
distinction of the sacred writers is that they first, and 
indeed they alone, took the spoken language of their day 
and employed it for literary purposes. 

It is a fresh exemplification of that Rabbinical saying 
which Archbishop Leighton loved to quote : ' The Law of 
God speaks the tongue of the children of men.' The Gospel 
is not a philosophy but glad tidings for the world, and there- 
fore it was proclaimed not in the jargon of the schools but 
in the language of the market and the home. And here is a 
lesson for the interpreter of the Living Oracles. As these 
were first delivered in the tongue of the children of men, so 
must they be rendered to each generation. King James's 
translators recognised this when they turned the Scriptures 
into the kindly mother-tongue of their contemporaries ; but 
language is ever changing, and their archaic English is now 
strange in our ears. It was the fashion with pedants in the 
later period to disdain the Common Greek and employ the 
ancient Attic ; and the philosopher Demonax was once 
answered in that strain. ' My friend,' said he, ' my question 
was put in the present day, and you answer me as if it were 
the time of Agamemnon/ And it is no less amiss that the 
Eternal Truth should be spoken to our generation in the 
language of ' the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth/ It 



PREFACE xi 

should be clothed in modern speech, the simple, homely 
speech of daily use. Translation is always a difficult task, 
as every one who has essayed it is well aware ; and no 
skill could render adequately the rugged, elusive, and im- 
passioned diction of the Apostle. The utmost I dare hope 
for my attempt is that it may serve to elucidate obscurities 
and help my readers to a more intelligent comprehension of 
his arguments. 

For information regarding the Pauline world acknowledg- 
ment is due primarily to the invaluable work of the ancient 
geographer Strabo, who flourished in the reign of Tiberius, a 
native of Amaseia in Pontus and an extensive traveller, 
b? fxaXa iroXXa 7r\a<y)^9i) } ttoXXcov B avdpcoTrcov iSev aarea kcli 
voov eyvco. Much also is due to the Naturalis Historia of 
the younger Pliny. And Sir William Ramsay's researches 
have added not a little to our knowledge of Asia Minor in 
the Apostle's day. 

On the vexed question of Pauline chronology I have found 
Lewin's Fasti Sacri incomparably helpful. Its value, to my 
mind, lies not in its conclusions, which indeed have seldom 
commanded my consent, but in its large array of collateral 
evidence. The truth is that there are few fixed points in the 
record of the Apostle's career. Absolute certainty is un- 
attainable on the available data ; and in the scheme which I 
have presented, I have merely indicated what appears, in 
my judgment, the probable order of events, stating my 
reasons and refraining from profitless discussion. It seems 
to me that my arrangement is, in the main, supported by 
both internal and external evidence ; but I am mindful of 
Thomas Fuller's admonition : ' Chronology is a surly, 
churlish cur, and hath bit many a man's fingers. Blame me 
not therefore, if willing to keep my own hands whole.' 

And indeed this has been my constant practice. Con- 
troversy is a foolish and futile employment ; and I have 
endeavoured to portray St. Paul simply as I have perceived 
him during long years of loving and delightful study of the 



xii LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

sacred memorials of his life and labour, mentioning the views 
of others only as they served to illustrate and confirm my 
own. If ever I have failed in acknowledging any debt, it 
has been through inadvertence, and I crave forgiveness. 
And I would fain hope that I have written nothing dis- 
courteous, nothing hurtful. This were indeed a grievous 
offence in the story of one who, amid much provocation, 
continually bore himself as the very pattern of a Christian 
gentleman. 

D. S. 

4, The College, 

Londonderry. 



CONTENTS 

tAGM 

Preface vii 

The Preparation for the Gospel . • • • i 



BOOK I 

SAUL OF TARSUS 

His Early Years . 17 

The Martyrdom of Stephen ...... 34 

The Conversion of Saul ...... 45 

BOOK II 
PAUL THE APOSTLE OF JESUS CHRIST 

His Call to the Apostleship of the Gentiles . . 65 

The First Mission: 

I. Ordination of Antioch 78 

11. Evangelisation of Cyprus . . . • . 81 

in. Evangelisation of Southern Galatia • . . 86 

iv. The Homeward Journey .<•••• 104 

The Council at Jerusalem ...... 107 

The Second Mission: 

1. Disunion of Paul and Barnabas . ♦ . , 116 

II. Progress through Asia Minor . • « . #119 

hi. The Call of the West . . . , . ,124 

iv. Evangelisation of Macedonia . • • • .126 

sffl 



xiv LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



The Second Mission — {continued) 
v. Sojourn at Athens . 
vi. Ministry at Corinth 
vn. The Homeward Journey 

Defection in Galatia . • 



The Third Mission: 

i. The Setting Forth . 
II. Ministry at Ephesus 

III. Trouble at Corinth . 

iv. Retreat to Macedonia 
v. Sojourn at Corinth . 

vi. The Journey to Jerusalem 



FAQS 
141 

149 

188 

193 



222 
224 

234 
341 

371 

459 



BOOK III 



PAUL THE PRISONER OF JESUS CHRIST 



Arrest at Jerusalem 

Imprisonment at C^sarea 

The Voyage to Rome 

The First Imprisonment at Rome . 



47i 
480 

490 

502 



BOOK IV 

THE CLOSING YEARS 

The Historical Problem . . , 

The Apostle's Later Ministry . . , 
The Second Imprisonment at Rome 
The Apostle's Martyrdom 



579 
596 
623 
638 



CON Th NTS 



xv 



APPENDIX 

L Pauline Chronology 

II. The Narratives of Saul's Conversion 
in. Paul's Malady .... 

iv. Luke and Antioch .... 

v. The Decree of the Council at Jerusalem 
vi, The Sacrament of Baptism 
vii. Verbal Peculiarities in the Pauline Letters 



PAGB 

645 
662 

664 

667 

671 

675 
681 



INDEX 



1. Names and Subjects 
11. Greek Words and Phrases 



697 
703 



MAPS 

1. St. Paul's Travels . 
11. Asia Minor . . 

in. Ancient Trade Routes . • 



1 
222 

577 



THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 

4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill 

shall be made low ; and the crooked shall be made straight, and 

the rough places plain : and the glory of the Lord shall be 

revealed, and all flesh shall see it together : for the mouth of the 

Lord hath spoken iV 

The Prophet Isaiah, 



THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 

Our Blessed Lord, though He was a Jew after the flesh and Universal 
lived and died in the little land of Palestine, was the Saviour f the*" 01 
of the World ; and His latest charge to His Apostles was that Gospel 
they should ' go and make disciples of all the nations ' and Mt. xxviii. 
be His witnesses ' unto the uttermost part of the earth.' It * 9 8 ' 
was a stupendous enterprise, and might seem impossible for 
that feeble band ; but it is an impressive fact, a signal evi- 
dence of the overruling providence of Almighty God, that 
the antecedent history of mankind had been nothing else 
than a preparation for the work. The storms which for Providen- 
centuries had swept the earth, fraught, as it appeared, with prions : 
disaster and leaving confusion in their train, had opened a 
way for the Gospel and facilitated its progress and diffusion. 

The first of those providential preparations was the dis- 1. The 
persion of the Jewish people. 1 rSpSsion. 

This movement began as early as the eighth century B.C. cf. jo. vii. 
with the transportation of multitudes of the people to the \ s . 'Jp' e l' 
far East by the Assyrian invaders ; and it continued during l *■ 
the ensuing centuries, sometimes perforce, as when Pompey 
carried his Jewish captives to Rome in the year 63 B.C., but 
more and more by voluntary emigration. In the days of 
Jeremiah a band of Judseans made insurrection against the 
governor whom the King of Babylon had set over their Jer. xii- 
devastated land ; and, dreading vengeance, the unhappy 
remnant of the nation migrated southward and settled in 
Egypt. Subsequently, under the Greek domination, the 
foundation of new cities and the privileges offered to immi- 
grants attracted adventurous Jews, and the tide of colonists 
flowed in ever increasing volume to Syria and Egypt, and then 
to Asia Minor, and westward to Greece, Italy, and Spain. 

1 Cf. Schiirer, The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, II. ii. 
pp. 220 ff. 



4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

its extent Hence it came to pass that by the beginning of the Christian 
era the Jewish Dispersion had covered the world, harbouring 
chiefly in the busy centres of commerce. Its extent appears 
from the enumeration of the countries represented by the 
worshippers who had come to the Feast and witnessed the 
wonders that followed the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on 

Ac.ii.9-11. the Day of Pentecost — Parthia, Media, Elam, and Mesopo- 
tamia in the East ; Cappadocia, t Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, and 
Pamphylia in Asia Minor ; Arabia, Egypt, and Cyrenaica in 
the South ; and Crete and Rome in the West. This is no 
exaggeration. The geographer Strabo * had already affirmed 
that the Jews ' had invaded every city, and it was not easy 
to find a place in the world which had not received that race 
and was not mastered by it . ' And, in his letter to the Emperor 
Caligula, Agrippa mentions Jewish colonies in Egypt, Phoe- 
nicia, Ccele- Syria, Pamphylia, and most of Asia Minor as far 
as Bithynia and Pontus ; also in Europe — Thessaly, Bceotia, 
Macedonia, Anatolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, and the most 
and best parts of the Peloponnesus ; and, moreover, in the 
principal islands — Eubcea, Cyprus, and Crete. 2 The evidence 
remains to this day in the monuments of Jewish life and 
worship — inscriptions, ostraca, and papyri — which are con- 
tinually being brought to light in all the countries surround- 
ing the basin of the Mediterranean. 

itsmagni- The Jewish colonies were not only numerous but large. 
In the vague but expressive phrase of the historian, there 
were ' infinite myriads ' of Jews beyond the Euphrates : ' their 
number could not be ascertained ' ; 3 and in the city of 
Damascus no fewer than ten thousand perished in a massacre 
during the reign of Nero. 4 Alexandria, the Egyptian capital, 
was mapped out into five divisions, distinguished by the first 
five letters of the alphabet ; and of these two were designated 
' Jewish ' since their inhabitants were mainly Jews. There 
was, moreover, a considerable Jewish admixture in the other 
divisions ; and the total Jewish population of Egypt amounted 
to no less than a million. 5 Italy also had its Jewish colonies. 

1 Quoted in Jos. Ant. xiv. viL 2. * Phil. Leg. ad Caium, 36. 

• Jos. Ant. xi. v. 2. 

* De Bell. Jud. n. xx. 2. In VII. viii. 7 the number is put at 1 8,00a 
6 Phil. In jf<tacc. 6, 8. 



THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 5 

The chief of these was at Rome. Its nucleus was Pompey's 
captive settlement, whence probably the imperial city de- 
rived her apocalyptic title of ' Babylon ■ ; and it is an indica- 
tion of its growth that in the year 6 B.C., when a Jewish 
embassy visited Rome to sue for autonomy, it was received 
on its arrival by over eight thousand resident Jews. 1 

Those Hellenists, as the Jews of the Dispersion were styled, 2 loyalty of 
remained true to their ancestral faith in the countries of their to \hS? 
adoption. They made frequent pilgrimages to Jerusalem, jjES, 
and at the great festivals the sacred capital was thronged 
with worshippers from afar ; 3 and they paid their annual 
tribute to the Temple, entrusting it to men of good repute 
appointed in almost every town to receive it and convey it 
to its destination. 4 None the less were they loyal to their 
own communities. They accounted the Holy City as their 
metropolis, but the countries where their lot was cast and 
where they had been born and nurtured, they regarded as 
their fatherlands, 5 mindful of the ancient prophet's counsel Jer.xxix. 7. 
to the Babylonian exiles : ' Seek the peace of the city whither 
I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto 
the Lord for it : for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.' 6 

And thus it came to pass that they exerted a potent influ- Literary 
ence in the countries of their adoption, and won multitudes agaTnsTSe 
of the heathen to their faith. This may indeed seem surpris- J ews - 
ing in view of the prevailing sentiment of the pagan literature 
of the period. Cicero terms the Jewish religion ' a barbarous 
superstition ' ; 7 and grave historians impute horrible ini- 
quities to ' the filthy race,' charging them not merely with a. Ex 
sloth inasmuch as they did no work each seventh day and *f "l^. 
devoted each seventh year to idleness, but with the practice xxv - 3-s- 
of ridiculous and monstrous rites— the worship of an ass's 
head, and the annual sacrifice of a Gentile stranger. 8 And 

. l Jos. Ant. xvii. xi. 1 ; De Bell. Jud. n. vi. I. 8 Cf. p. 38. 

3 On the basis of the lambs offered it was estimated that the worshippers at 
the Passover of a.d. 66 numbered 2,700,200 (Jos. De Bell. Jud. vi. ix. 3). 

4 Phil. De Monarch, ii. 3. On the enormous tribute of Laodiceiai cf. p. 549. 
6 Phil. De Flacc. 7. 

6 Cf. the maxim of Bias (Diog. Laert. 1. 85). 7 Pro Flacc. 28. 

• Tac. Hist. v. 4, 8. Jos. Contra Apion. II. 7 f. ; cf. quotation in Suidas 
(under AajiSieptTos) from Damocritus the historian's work 'On the Jews.' The 
charge of worshipping an ass's head was transferred to the Christians, who were 



6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Cf. i Th. 
ii. 15. 



An unwit- 
ting 
tribute. 



Successful 

prosely- 

tism. 



Cf. Ac. 

xiii. 50 ; 
xvii. 4. 



the Roman satirist not only makes merry over their abhor- 
rence of swine's flesh but, like Tacitus, accuses them of 
hatred of the rest of mankind. 1 All this, however, represents 
merely the sentiment of the cultured classes ; and they knew 
Judaism only by common report and naturally despised it as 
an alien thing, the creed of a turbulent race in frequent in- 
surrection against the imperial rule. In truth their animosity 
was an unwitting tribute ; for it was provoked, as they betray 
in the midst of their revilings, 2 by the successful proselytism 
of the Jews. ' Among the masses,' says the Jewish his- 
torian, 3 ' there has long been much zeal for our religion ; nor 
is there any city, Greek or barbarian, nor a single nation 
where the custom of our seventh day of rest from labour has 
not come into vogue ; and the fasts and the lamp-lightings 4 
and many of our prohibitions regarding food are observed.' 
Nor is this a mere patriotic boast. ' So far,' says the philo- 
sopher Seneca, 5 ' has the usage of the accursed race prevailed 
that it is now received throughout all lands : the conquered 
have given laws to the conquerors.' And in the reign of 
Honorius (a.d. 395-423) the poet Claudius Rutilius Numati- 
anus actually wished that Judaea had never been subdued by 
Pompey and Titus ; for then the pestilence would not have 
spread so widely, and the conquered nation would not have 
oppressed its conquerors. 6 Women were especially impres- 
sionable, and it is recorded that in the time of Nero the women 
of Damascus were all, with a few exceptions, captivated by 
the Jewish religion. 7 It appealed mainly indeed, as Josephus 
observes, to the lower orders ; yet it won not a few ladies of 
rank even in the imperial capital, like Fulvia, that Roman 

thence styled asinarii. Cf. Tert. Apol, xvi ; Ad Nat. I. xiv ; Min. FeL 
Oct. ix. 3. 
1 Juv. vi. 160, xiv. 98 ff. Tac. Hist. v. 5. Cf. Jos. Contra Apion. II. 10. 

* Cf. Tac. Hist. v. 5 ; Hor. Sat. 1. iv. 142 f. 
8 Jos. Contra Apion. 11. 39. 

* Ex. xxxy. 3. Cf. Sen. Epist. xcv ; Pers. v. 1 79-84. 

* In Aug. De Civit. Dei, VI. xi. 

* Itinerar. 395-8 : 

' Atque utinam nunquam Judaea subacta fuissat 

Pompeii bellis imperioque Titi ! 
Latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt, 
Victoresque suos natio victa premit.' 

T Jos. D* Bill. Jud. 11. xx. 2. 



IX. 20 . 

xiv 

i : xvii. 



THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 7 

lady whose pious generosity was so grossly abused, 1 and Nero's 
unhappy empress, Poppsea Sabina. 2 Nor were there lacking 
men of exalted station who embraced the Jewish faith, like Ac, vffi. 
the chamberlain of Candace, the Queen of Ethiopia, Azizus, 
King of Emesa, and Polemo, King of Cilicia. 3 

Thus widely were the Jewish people scattered abroad, and The 
their dispersion served to facilitate the diffusion of Christianity. oppor- ls 
The heralds of the Gospel were themselves Jews, and their tunity. 
mission, like their Lord's, was not to overthrow the ancient cf. Mt. 
faith but to proclaim its fulfilment. It was no small advan- v ' * 7 ' 
tage that, wherever they went, they found an audience which Cf. Ac. 
could understand their message ; and in every town which ^ui^ 
they visited, they repaired immediately to the Jewish syna- ** ffi 
gogue, and there preached the glad tidings. The Gospel was 1-3.,. 17; 
indeed a message of universal grace, but the providence of ^sT'xfx. 1 !; 
God had prescribed the apostolic procedure — ' both to the Jew, * XV111, I7, 
in the first instance, and to the Greek.' Rom. i. 16. 

Another pathway had been opened by the Greek conquests. 4 ^ r f al uni " 
Not the least of the difficulties which missionaries in all ages language, 
have experienced, has lain in their ignorance of the native 
languages and the preliminary necessity of laboriously acquir- 
ing these ; and it has often been supposed that the Apostles 
were miraculously aided by ' the gift of tongues,' which 
enabled them, wherever they travelled, to preach in the 
language of their hearers. 5 The truth, however, is that the 
difficulty never confronted them. The ambition of Alex- 
ander the Great and his successors had been to weld the 
nations into one world by the universal imposition of Greek 
usages ; and it had been so far achieved that, save in remote 
regions where the new civilisation had never penetrated, the 
Greek language was the common speech of all the nations 
which environed the Mediterranean. The native languages 
did not indeed perish. Each country retained its own ver- 
nacular. Its people were bilingual : they understood the 
general lingua franca, but they clung to their mother-tongues 
and employed these among themselves, since they were dear 

1 Cf. pp. 389 f. *Cf. p. 505. 

* Jos. Ant. xx. vii. I, 3. 

* Cf. Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, chap. i. 

* Cf . pp. 296 f. 



8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

to their hearts and pleasant in their ears. 1 Thus the people 
Ac xiv. of Lystra understood the Apostles when the latter addressed 
them in the Common Greek ; but when they witnessed the 
miracle of the healing of the cripple, in their surprise they 
lapsed into their vernacular and exclaimed to each other in 
Lycaonian : ' The gods have come down to us in the likeness 
xxi. 37- of men ! ' The Common Greek was spoken also at Jerusalem ; 
but when Paul was beset by the mob, he addressed them in 
Aramaic, and the homely accents arrested their attention and 
calmed their frenzy. In Egypt, as the papyri which have 
recently been unearthed so strikingly demonstrate, the Greek 
language prevailed ; and it was spoken freely even at Rome. 2 
Plutarch confesses that during his sojourn at the imperial 
capital in the reign of Trajan (a.d. 98-117) he was entirely 
ignorant of Latin and had no leisure to acquire it ; yet he 
experienced no difficulty in conducting the negotiations which 
his native city of Chaeronea had entrusted to him, or in dis- 
coursing on philosophy to the audiences which waited upon 
him. 3 In fact Rome, like the other cities of the period, 
was bilingual ; and hence the Monumentum Ancyranwm, the 
record of his achievements which the Emperor Augustus 
designed for erection before his mausoleum, was inscribed 
both in Latin and in Greek, 4 and Paul's great encyclical on 
Justification by Faith, though specially destined for the 
Church at Rome, was written in Greek. 
3. The Nor should it be forgotten how much the imperial constitu- 

Empire. tion furthered the progress of the Gospel. It was a magnifi- 
cent organisation, created largely by the statesmanship of the 
Emperor Augustus. 5 He is reported to have boasted that 
he had found Rome a city of bricks and he left it a city of 

1 Cf. Hieronym. Proczm., Comment. Lib. II in Epist. ad Gal. : 'Galatas 
excepto sermone Graeco, quo omnis Oriens loquitur, propriam linguam eandem 
pene habere quam Treviros, nee referre si aliqua exinde corruperint.' 

1 The graffiti chalked on the walls in execration of Nero's crimes were in 
some cases Greek epigrams (cf. Suet. Ner. 39). Cf. Juv. iii. 60 f. 

3 Demosth. ii. 2. 

* Suet. Aug. 101 : ' indicem rerum a se gestarum, quern vellet incidi in aeneis 
tabulis quse ante Mausoleum statuerentur.' Cf. Lewin, Fasti Sacri, pp. 377 fF. ; 
Schtirer, 1. i. p. 115. On the Koivq cf. Moulton, Gramm. of N. T. Gk., vol. I; 
Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East ; Milligan, Greek Papyri and N. T. 
Documents, 11. 

• Cf. Tac. Ann. 1. 9. 



THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 9 

marble ; x but that was in truth the least of his achievements. 
His influence reached far beyond the capital and transformed 
the world. The triumph of the Roman arms had established 
' the Roman Peace ' 2 — a priceless benefit even to the con- Roman* 

Pax 

quered races which lamented the loss of their independence 
and chafed under the imperial yoke. Brigandage and piracy 
had been suppressed, and in the remotest wilds life and pro- 
perty were secure. 3 Civilisation was advanced ; commerce 
flourished ; and in its peaceful rivalry ancient hostilities were 
forgotten. 

The Empire was the world, and it was all interlinked. 4 Roman 
From the capital to the farthest frontier ran the Roman roads, 
those triumphs of engineering skill which have outlasted the 
decay of nigh two thousand years. 5 Constructed originally 
for the transit of troops, they served afterwards the happier 
uses of civilisation and rendered travel easy, uniting the 
sundered nations and reconciling their estrangement. Asia 
Minor was traversed from west to east by the great trade 
route from Ephesus to the Euphrates, and lesser highways 
intersected the country in every direction ; while the famous 
Egnatian Road stretched from Dyrrachium on the Adriatic 
through Illyricum, Macedonia, and Thrace to the Hellespont, 
marked so far as Cypsela on the Hebrus with milestones and 
measuring thither five hundred and thirty Roman miles. 6 
The sea too, cleared of pirates, was a highway betwixt the 
nations, and, save in the winter season when navigation was 
suspended, 7 ships laden with merchandise and passengers were 

1 Suet. Aug. 28. 

8 Cf. Sen. De Prov. iv. 14; De Clem. 1. i. 2, iv. 2; Plin. Nat. Hist. 
xxvii. 1 ; Tac. Ann. XII. 33. 

* In the reign of Tiberius Strabo (756) spoke of the happy change which the 
Roman administration had recently effected by putting down the brigands who 
had formerly sallied from their fastnesses among the mountains of Arabia and 
Itunea near Damascus and plundered merchants from Arabia Felix. And 
Apollonius of Tyana (cf. Vit. 1. 20) realised the value of Roman civilisation when 
he passed beyond its limits. 

* Cf. Tac. Ann. 1. 9. 

The Latin phrase was not to 'construct' but to 'fortify a road/ viam 
tnunire (cf. Suet. Aug. 30). 

Strabo, 322 ; Cic. De Prov. Cons. ii. : ' via ilia nostra, quae per Mace- 
donian! est ad Hellespontum, militarist Cf. Tafel, Via Milit. Rom. Mgn. 
7 Cf. Append. I, p. 648. 



io LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

continually plying to and fro among the numerous and busy 
ports on the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean. 
Roman Still more advantageous was the protection which the 

august authority of Roman Law afforded the heralds of the 
Ac. xviii. Gospel. 1 Again and again its strong and impartial hand 
35-41 j xxi interposed between Paul and the fury of the populace, pagan 
2 7 ff - and Jewish alike ; and it is no wonder that he accounted it 
£7^1 i?m. a beneficent ordinance of God and charged the Christians to 
ii. 1-4. revere it. He recognised in the imperial order a bulwark 
6, 7. ' which restrained the forces of iniquity and averted the im- 
E P h. ii. 19. pending cataclysm ; 2 and it even seemed in his eyes an 

adumbration of the Heavenly Commonwealth. 3 
4 f ^Tn ^ constituted the supreme appeal of Christianity that, 
religion, when it appeared, the pagan religions were dead. The 
ancient mythology was the basis of the Greek religion, and 
the poems of Homer and Hesiod were its sacred oracles. 4 It 
sufficed for centuries, but the rise of philosophy discovered 
its irrationality ; and as early as the sixth century its an- 
thropomorphism was mercilessly ridiculed by Xenophanes, 
the founder of the Eleatic school. 

' All things unto the gods have Homer and Hesiod ascribed, 
Whatsoever of men reproaches and blame are accounted, 
Thieving and fornication and cozening one of another/ 5 

From generation to generation the untenability of the ancient 
religion was ever more clearly recognised ; and the situation 
towards the close of the pre-Christian era was defined by 
M. Terentius Varro, ' the acutest and most learned of man- 
kind.' 6 There were, he said, three kinds of theology — the 
mythic, the physical, and the civil. The first was the theology 
of the poets ; and it was a tissue of grotesque and frequently 
immoral fables, ascribing to the gods everything that belongs 
not merely to man but to man at his basest. The second 
was the theology of the philosophers, who traced all things to 
a natural origin. The first principle, according to Heraclitus, 
was fire ; according to Pythagoras, numbers ; according to 

1 Cf . Tac. Ann. 1. 9 : ' jus apud cives, modestiam apud socios.' 

1 Cf. p. 173- 3 Cf. pp. 512, 533. * Cf. Herod. 11. 53. 

* Sext. Empir. Adv. Math. ix. 193. Cf. ^Egid. Menag. on Diog. Laert. 
ix. 18. 

• Aug. D* Civ. Dei, VI. v. ff. 



THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL u 

Epicurus, atoms. Finally, there was the theology of the 
populace — the religious ceremonial decreed, regulated, and 
maintained by the State. ' This is the kind of theology which 
the citizens and especially the priests are bound to know 
and administer ; which prescribes what gods, what rites and 
sacrifices it is right that every man should publicly worship 
and perform.' Religion had gone, and only ritual remained. 
As Gibbon has it, ' the various modes of worship which pre- 
vailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people 
as equally true ; by the philosopher as equally false ; and by 
the magistrate as equally useful.' 1 

The ancient faith was dead, but the religious instinct con- Quest for 
tinued indestructible in the human heart which was made for od " 
God and is restless until it find rest in Him ; 2 and nothing 
in the annals of that period is more impressive than the con- 
fessions which earnest souls have left of their spiritual hunger 
and their quest for satisfaction. Not the least remarkable 
is the story of St. Justin Martyr, a pagan though a native of 
Palestine — how he sought rest successively in each of the 
philosophic schools, the Stoic, the Peripatetic, the Pytha- 
gorean, and the Platonist, and sought it vainly, until at length 
he found it in Christ. 3 

His was no singular experience. The world was crying « Nameless 
after God, and its religion, even where it was still believed, altars/ 
was unavailing. A striking evidence is furnished by the 
prevalent custom of erecting altars ' to unknown gods.' * Cf. Ac. 
Its origin was generally explained by a curious legend. 5 In XV11 ' 23 ' 
the sixth century, it was said, a pestilence had visited Athens, 
and it continued after the citizens had offered propitiatory 
sacrifices to all the gods they knew. In their despair they cf. Tit 
summoned the Cretan poet and prophet, Epimenides ; and ! " "' 
he drove a flock of sheep, both black and white, to the Areio- 

1 Decline and Fall, chap. ii. 

* Aug. Confess, i. I : ' Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donee 
requiescat in Te.' 

3 Dial, cum Tryph. t adinit. 

4 Philostr. Apoll. Tyan. vi. 8 : * It is more prudent to speak well of all 
gods, and that at Athens, where altars even of unknown deities have been set up.' 
Paus. I. i. 4 ; Min. Fel. Oct. vi. 2 ; Luc. Philopatr. g, 29. 

6 Diog. Laert. i. no. Cf. Isid. Pel. Epist. iv. 69, where two legends are 
mentioned. 



12 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

pagos, and suffered them to stray thence whither they would, 
and wherever each lay down it was sacrificed ' to the fitting 
god.' The device proved efficacious, and thenceforward 
it was the fashion throughout the Greek world l to erect 
' nameless altars/ bearing the dedication ' to an unknown 
god ' or ' to unknown gods.' 
Oriental It was a confession of the insufficiency of the existing re- 
syncretism. ^gj on an d the need of a larger revelation ; and more and 
more the heart of the western world turned wistfully toward 
the mystic faiths of the East as these came within its ken. 
The worship of Cybele, the Phrygian Mother of the Gods, 
prevailed in Greece as early as the close of the fifth century 
B.C., and passed into Rome during the Second Punic War ; * 
and other oriental cults soon followed, especially those of the 
Persian Mithras and the Egyptian Serapis and Isis. It would 
indeed have been strange had Judaism alone of all the oriental 
faiths made no appeal to the eager heart of the West ; and 
the fact is that there was no other save the Egyptian that 
found so much favour. At all events, when in the reign of 
Tiberius an unsuccessful attempt was made to repress the 
alien religions which had invaded the capital, it was against 
the Egyptian and the Jewish rites that it was directed. 3 
Attractive- Its austere ethic and still more its lofty spirituality may 
"ewish indeed have repelled the pagan multitude, 4 but those very 
mono- characteristics commended the Jewish faith to souls of a 

theism. ** 

nobler order which yearned for purity and shrank alike from 
the Greek deification of the human and from the Egyptian 
animal-worship. 5 These welcomed the Jewish monotheism. 
It was an ideal which at once did no outrage to their intellects 
and afforded their hearts a satisfaction which they could not 
find in the cold abstractions of philosophy. Yet they did 
not for the most part embrace Judaism outright. The 
ceremonial Law was distasteful to them, and they would not 

'The submit to its rites. And so they remained uncircumcised. 

in g / ( They revered the One Living and True God and shared in 

1 At Olympia (cf. Paus. v. xiv. 8) ; at Pergamos (cf. inscription discovered is 
1910 and described by Deissmann, St. Paul, pp. 2626°.). 

1 Cf. Liv. xxix. 11, 14; Ovid. Fast. iv. 179 f. ; Juv. iii. 137 f. 

* Cf. Tac. Ann. II. 85 ; Suet. Tib. 36 ; Jos. Ant. XVIII. iii. 4. 

* Juv. xiv. 97 ; cf. Tac. Hist. v. 5. * Cf. Strabo, 760 f. 



THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 13 

the worship of Synagogue and Temple, and were frequently 
conspicuous, like the centurion of Capernaum and that other Lk. m. 4, 
centurion, Cornelius of Caesarea, for the lavish generosity of ^ 
their offerings. 1 But they did not profess themselves Jews, 
and they were distinguished from the proselytes by the titles 
of ' the God-fearing ' and ' the devout.' 2 

These men represented a widespread tendency of the The 
period. They were seeking rest for their souls, and they oppj^. b 
found it after a sort in Judaism. But Judaism was insufn- tunitv - 
cient. It was only a temporary resting-place, a foretaste of 
a nobler satisfaction. And this is the deepest of all the 
providential preparations for the Gospel. The world was, 
if the phrase be pardonable, prospecting for a faith, and 
its unconscious prayer was answered by the advent of 
Christianity. 

The world was thus ready for Christianity ; it was waiting The 
for the heralds of the Cross. But the heralds were tardy in ^5sm° f 
appearing. While their Lord was with them, the Apostles cf. Mt. xv, 
had continually grieved Him by their slowness of heart and *J; g 7 .^ 
their imperviousness to the ideals of His Kingdom ; and much 22 > 2 3 ; ™ 
of their dulness remained after His departure despite thexvih. 34; 
illumination of the Holy Spirit. It is not a little remark- xxlv ' 25 
able that for some four years they tarried in Judaea in 
apparent obliviousness of His farewell charge that they should 
' go and make disciples of all the nations ' ; and it was only 
the stern compulsion of a fierce persecution that drove them 
abroad. They were not indeed without excuse. The Lord 
had bidden them ' begin from Jerusalem/ and it was needful Lk. xxiv. 
that the Church should be securely established at the centre 47 ' 
ere she extended her borders. 3 But the situation presented 
a graver aspect. The Apostles were not only slow in girding 
themselves to their mission but they entertained a poor 
conception of the message which had been entrusted to them. 
When the persecution was over, Peter went forth on a mission, cf. Ac 

ix. 32-xi. 
1 Cf. Jos. Ant. xiv. vii. 2 ; De Bell. Jud. vu. iii. 3. l8 ' 

8 ©1 4>ofiov/Aevoi rbv Qehv (cf. Ac. x. 2, 22 ; xiii. 16, 26) ; 01 <re^6fievoi rbv Qebv 

(cf. xviii. 7) or simply oi aefiS/ievot (cf. xiii. 50 ; xvii. 4, 17). 

8 Their procrastination was justified in after days by a legend, ascribed to 

St. Peter, that the Lord had charged them to remain for twelve years at 

Jerusalem. Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. VI. v. 43 : fierd 8J>Sena irrj i£4\$ere «'$ rbv 

Kbtfiov, j«,T7 7« dry, qvk rjKovffajxtv. Eus. H. E. v. 18, 



i 4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

but it was confined within narrow limits. He never passed 
beyond the confines of Palestine. His farthest reach was the 
Plain of Sharon with its cities of Lydda, Joppa, and Caesarea ; 
and it appears that he addressed himself exclusively to Jews, 
nor would he ever have thought of preaching to Gentiles had 
he not received an appeal from Cornelius the centurion of 
Csesarea. And Cornelius was not a mere Gentile. He was 
one of the ' God-fearing.' Yet Peter's action in receiving 
him and his friends into Christian fellowship and administer- 
ing to them the Sacrament of Baptism was challenged on his 
return to Jerusalem by a party of extremists. 1 His offence 
in their eyes was not that he had admitted Gentiles into 
the Church, but that he had admitted them uncircumcised. 
The Mosaic Law, they maintained, was permanently obligatory 
and its observance was necessary to salvation. 
The , The thought of those ' champions of circumcision ' was that 

Church s 

deliverer. Christianity was simply Judaism plus the confession of Jesus 
as the Christ, the promised Messiah ; and had they prevailed, 
the Church would have degenerated into a mere Jewish sect. 
She would never have realised her universal mission or grasped 
her providential opportunities. The hope of the world lay 
in her emancipation from the past ; and the mercy of God 
did not fail her in that perilous crisis. Out of the very heart 
of Judaism came a man of large vision and courageous spirit 
who broke her fetters and led her forth on her world-wide 
enterprise. And the story of the man and the deliverance 
which he wrought is now our high theme. 

1 ol eK irepiTofM^s (xi. 2; cf. Gal. ii. 12), c the champions of circumcision,' 
more precisely denned as rivet rQ>v dirb ttjs alptvem tQjv $af/i<raiwv iTemo-rev/coTcs 
(xv. 5). 



BOOK 1 
SAUL OF TARSUS 

* I will bring the blind by a way that they know not ; in paths 
that they know not will I lead them : I will make darkness light 
before them, and crooked places straight.' 

Tfu Prophet Isaiah* 



HIS EARLY YEARS 



' 



* He was makin' himsell a 5 the time ; but he didna ken maybe what he 
was about till years had passed.' — Lockhart, Life of Scott, chap. vii. 

Tarsus was pronounced by the greatest of her sons ' no undis- Tarsus, 
tinguished city,' and she merited the encomium. 1 She was the Ac xxi 39. 
metropolis of Cilicia and the western capital, as Antioch was 
the eastern, of the united Province of Syria-Cilicia. Her origin 
is lost in the mist of antiquity. According to the mycolo- 
gists, she had been founded by Triptolemus during the wander- 
ings of the Argives in quest of Io, and her name was derived 
from the wing (tarsos) of Pegasus which had fallen there. 2 
She stood, however, in no need of legendary glorification. 
She owed much to her natural situation, standing as she did Her 
on a fair plain, bounded northward by the long range of situatioa 
Taurus and eastward by the ridge of Amanus. This spacious 
champaign was blessed with luxuriant fertility, albeit it 
bore one serious disadvantage inasmuch as it was subject to 
visitations of malaria by reason of its marshes and the sultri- 
ness of its climate. Across it flowed the river Cydnus which, 
issuing from the Taurus and pouring its rapid tide through 
a deep gorge, emerged close to the city and passed through 
her midst, occasioning an ill-natured jest which likened the 
citizens to water-fowl squatted by the stream. 3 Since Tarsus 
was only three-quarters of a mile from the sea, the course 
of the Cydnus was very short ; yet its stream was navigable, 
as was proved on one memorable occasion when it floated 
the gorgeous galley of Cleopatra on her coming from Egypt 
to Antony's camp in Cilicia. 4 Its waters, cold from the heart 
of the mountain, were accounted efficacious for the relief of 

1 Cf. Strabo, 673-5. * Juv. iii. 118. 

* Philostr. Apoll. Tyan. i. 7. 

4 Plut. Ant. xxvi. Cf. Shakespeare's magnificent description in Ant. and 
Cltop. 11. ii. 195-223. 
B 



18 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



H«r 
prosperity. 



Her Intel- 
lectual 
fame. 



Her 

famous 

sons. 



swellings of the joints and gouty affections in both men and 
cattle. 

At the beginning of the Christian era Tarsus was at the 
height at once of her prosperity and of her fame. The former 
was derived partly from the fertility of the neighbouring 
country and still more from the lucrative commerce which 
she conducted through her port of Rhegma at the river-mouth. 
And she enjoyed a yet nobler celebrity. She was at that period 
the world's principal seat of learning. ' So deeply,' writes the 
geographer Strabo, ' are the people there imbued with zeal 
for philosophy that they have surpassed Athens and Alex- 
andria and every other place that can be mentioned.' And 
she possessed this proud distinction which Alexandria alone 
shared — that her savants were all natives. Students nocked 
to her schools from other lands, but she had no need of alien 
teachers. On the contrary, she had no room for the multi- 
tude of her learned sons, and she sent them abroad to en- 
lighten the world. ' Rome especially can learn the multi- 
tude of the r'tv's savants; for she is full of Tarsians and 
Alexandrians. ' 

This claim is demonstrated by the goodly array of her sons 
who had attained eminence in every field of intellectual 
activity. These included the Stoic philosophers Antipater, 
Archedamus, Nestor, Athenodorus Cordulio, Cato's teacher, 
and Athenodorus the son of Sandon and the teacher of the 
Emperor Augustus ; also Nestor the Academic, the teacher 
of Marcellus, the son of Augustus' sister Octavia, and other 
philosophers ; grammarians, too, like Artemidorus and 
Diodorus ; and poets, like Dionysius the tragedian. 1 The 
neighbouring seaport of Soli, though unenviably immortal- 
ised by the term ' solecism,' 2 nevertheless produced not only 
Chrysippus, the Stoic philosopher, whose father, a native of 
Tarsus, had migrated thither, but the comic poet Philemon 
and the natural philosopher Aratus. 3 It is a mere inadvert- 
ence when Browning styles Aratus ' a native of Tarsus ' ; 4 
but doubtless Aratus, and Chrysippus and Philemon too, 
would be educated there. And so was another of less happy 



1 There was a 
iv. 58). 

* Diog. Laert. i. 51. 



school of tragedy known as 'the Tarsian' (Diog, 

* Strabo, 671. * Chen, prefatory note 



Laert. 



HIS EARLY YEARS 19 

fame — Apollonius of Tyana. 1 At the age of fourteen his 
father brought him to Tarsus from his home in Cappadocia to 
stvdy under the rhetorician Euthydemus, and it is perhaps 
no reproach to the city that his experience there dissatisfied 
the future charlatan. His complaint, curiously enough, was 
that the atmosphere of Tarsus was unfavourable to the study 
of philosophy, inasmuch as her people were luxurious and 
dissolute with an unpleasant propensity to scoffing and insol- 
ence. It is indeed probable that neither charge was ground- 
less ; for Tarsus was a wealthy city, and where there is wealth 
there is apt to be luxury, and the citizens of the neighbouring 
capital of Syrian Antioch were notorious for their scurrilous 
wit. 2 Nevertheless the fact remains that Tarsus was a 
brilliant city ; and if it be true that his city's reputation is 
the first condition of a man's happiness, 3 it was no small 
advantage to be born and nurtured in her midst. 

But Tarsus had another son greater than all these. There The 
were many Jews in Cilicia, so many that they had a synagogue If^f st 
at Jerusalem where they worshipped when they visited the Ac. vi. 9. 
Holy City not only to celebrate the Feasts but to prosecute 
their mercantile enterprises. The chief community of those 
Hellenists would naturally have its home in the busy capi- 
tal, and it included one household of repute. The father is His father, 
unknown. His very name is unrecorded, and only a few 
hints of his character and career remain. These, however, 
are peculiarly suggestive. It appears from a confused and 
precarious tradition that he was a late arrival at Tarsus. 
He was a native of Gischala in northern Galilee, and he had a native d 
been driven from his home by civil commotion, perhaps the Glschala - 
wild insurrection which ensued upon the death of Herod the cf. Ac. 
Great in 4 B.C. and brought the avenging sword of Varus into v ' 37, 
Galilee. 4 He escaped across the northern frontier with his 
wife and child, and found an asylum at Tarsus. 5 

1 Philostr. Apoll. Tyan. i. 7 ; cf. vi. 34. * Cf . p. 67. 

8 A saying ascribed to Euripides : XPV vai T $ eddalfiopt irp&Tov inrdp^ai rV 
irOhiv evdoKifiov (Plut. Demosth. i. i). 

4 Cf. Schiirer, 1. ii. pp. 4L 

1 This tradition is preserved by St. Jerome. Cf. Catal. Script. Eccl. (under 
Paulus Apostolus) : ' De tribu Benjamin et oppido Judaeae Gischalis fuit, quo a. 
Romanis capto cum parentibus suis Tarsum Cilicias commigravit, a quibus ob 
studia legis missus Hierosolymam a Gamaliele viro doctissimo eruditus est.' 



20 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 






A Roman It appears from the education which he was able to give 
citizen. ^ son ^at he was, if not wealthy, at least well provided ; 
and he occupied an honourable station, since he possessed 
Ac. xxii. as. the hereditary distinction of the Roman citizenship. This 
was no empty adornment, inasmuch as it conferred the two- 
Ac. xvi.j;, fold privilege of exemption from the degrading punishments 
ls!^T' oi scourging and crucifixion, and the right of appeal to the 
xxv. 10-12. Emperor's tribunal. It was originally designed as a recog- 
nition of conspicuous merit ; x but more and more under the 
imperial regime it might be obtained by purchase, and thus its 
lustre was tarnished. 2 A devout Jew, even had he possessed 
the means, would hardly have stooped to corruption ; yet 
it is unlikely that one who had merited the distinction should 
have needed to flee into exile. He had probably inherited 
it ; and it is a reasonable surmise that his father or grand- 
father had been one of the Jews whom Pompey had carried 
captive to Rome in B.C. 63 and there sold into slavery. 3 
Philo relates 4 that they were subsequently emancipated and 
invested with the Roman citizenship ; and many of them 
returned to their native land. 
a true He possessed, however, a still more honourable distinction 

Rom^xL'i- an( ^ bequeathed a still more precious heritage. He was an 
Ph 6' 'c? Israelite of blameless lineage. He was a son of Benjamin, 
Gen. xiix. that martial tribe which, little as it was, had borne itself so 
v 7 14 (cf! gallantly on the battlefields of old. And he represented the 
Hos. v. 8), noblest type of Jewish piety. He was a zealous adherent of 
the sect of the Pharisees which, despite too frequent intoler- 

Comment. on Philem. 23 : ' Talem fabulam accepimus. Aiunt parentes Apostoii 
Pauli de Gyscalis regione fuisse Judaeae, et eos cum tota provincia Romana 
vastaretur manu et dispergerentur in orbe Judaei, in Tarsum urbem Ciliciae fuisse 
translatos, parentum conditionem adulescentulum Paulum secutum.' There are 
here two errors : (1) Paul is said to have been born at Gischala, whereas on his 
own testimony (Ac. xxii. 3) he was born at Tarsus ; (2) the gross anachronism of 
assigning the capture of Gischala and the flight apparently to the final death- 
struggle with Rome in A.D. 70. It would perhaps be unfair to ascribe these 
glaring inaccuracies to St. Jerome's habitual carelessness. He wrote during his 
long residence at Bethlehem (a.d. 386-420), and here, professedly, he is merely 
quoting the local tradition {talent fabulam accepimus). It was natural that the 
Palestinians should desire to make out that the great Apostle was their country- 
man. 

1 Cf. Suet. Aug. 47 ; Jos. Vit. 76. 

■ Cf. Ac. xxii. 28 ; Dio Cass. lx. 17 ; Luc. Detn. 40. 

* Cf. p. 3. * AdCai. 11. 568 f. 



XX. 



HIS EARLY YEARS 21 

ance and traditionalism, comprehended most that was godly 
and all that was patriotic in the later Judaism. He was a 
devout Jew, and in the city of his exile he was true to his 
fathers' God and the traditions of their faith 

His wife was like-minded. They had at least two children. His wife. 
One was a daughter ; and, if it be permissible to suppose that l6# " 
she was the child whom they carried with them in their flight 
from Gischala, she was the elder. And they had also a son. Their son 
They called him Saul, that ancient Benjamite name ; and x gam. ix. 
since it signifies ' asked for,' it may perhaps be inferred that r - 2 - 
he was their only son and was granted them after long desire. 
Like Samuel he was the child of many prayers ; and ere j Sam. 
his birth his mother had consecrated him to the service of n . . „ 

Gal. 1. 15. 

God. 1 It was the fashion in those days for a Jew to be called 
by two names — a Jewish name, which he bore among his own 
people, and another which he bore in his intercourse with the 
Gentile world. 2 Sometimes the latter was a translation of 
the Jewish name, like Didymus, which is the Greek of Thomas, j<>. xi. 16; 

Ac ix "^6 

' the Twin/ or Dorcas, which is the Greek of Tabitha, ' a 
Gazelle ' ; sometimes it was quite distinct, like Mark, the Ac. xu. 12, 
Latin surname of John the cousin of Barnabas, though 25 ' 
generally it had some resemblance in sound, like the Latin Ac. i. 23 ; 
Justus surnaming Joseph and Jesus. And thus those godly 
Jewish parents called their child Saul, and gave him also the 
Latin name of Paul, perhaps merely because of the assonance, His Gentiu 
but it may be because the ancestor who had bequeathed them Paul! ° 
the Roman citizenship, had been a freedman of the ^Emilian 
house, where the cognomen of Paulus was common. 3 

1 &<f>opifav (Gal. i. 15), 'separate' in the sense of 'set apart,' 'consecrate.' 
Cf. Ac. xiii. 2. 

* Cf. Lightfoot, Hor. Hebr. p. %%-$ (on I Cor. i. i). 

1 Two other explanations of the double name have been suggested. (l) Since 
he is called Saul in Acts until his rencontre at Paphos before Sergius Paulus 
(xiii. 9), it has been supposed that he adopted the name of his distinguished con- 
vert, as Scipio after his conquest of Africa was styled ' Af ricanus ' and Metellus 
after his conquest of Crete ' Creticus ' (Hieronym. Script. Eccl. ; Comment, on 
Phm. 1). So Aug. Confess, vm. 4, and in modern times Beng., Baur, Mey. 
But the phrase SaDXoj 6 kuI UaOXos, ' Saul who is also Paul,' implies that he had 
borne the name all along. Had he only now assumed it, Luke would have 
written 'Saul who was thenceforth (and Tore) Paul.' (2) Paulus means 'little,' 
and Augustine (Serm. cclxxix. 5 ; De Spir. et Litt. 12) supposes that the Apostle 
assumed it as ' a name of humility ' (cf. 1 Cor. xv. 9). Perhaps he might rather 



2% LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Hisedue^- It was apparently in the year a.d. i that Saul was born, 1 
and he was thus some five years younger than our Blessed 
Lord. 2 Since that reference to her pious dedication of her 
child is the sole mention which is made of his mother, it would 
seem that she died soon after his birth and he never knew her. 
But her gracious ambition was not frustrated. It was shared 
by her husband, and he devoted the child to the honourable 
career of a Rabbi, ' a teacher of Israel,' and ordered his edu- 

Parentai cation to this end. He would faithfully perform his own part 

t?on™ at the outset in obedience to that injunction which ranks as 
the eleventh of the six hundred and thirteen commandments 
of the Law in Maimonides' Book of the Precepts : ' These words 

Dt. vi. 6, 7 . which I command thee this day, shall be upon thine heart : 
and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and 
shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when 
thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when 
thou risest up.' 

■The At the age of six or seven 3 the child would be sent to the 

House of n w . 

the Book/ elementary school. This was connected with the local 
synagogue, and since the manual of instruction was the Book 
of the Law, it was known as ' the House of the Book/ 4 The 
Aramaic vernacular would be the language of his home, and 

cf. Ac. xxi. he spoke it in after days as freely as a native of Palestine ; 
and he would learn also the ancient Hebrew, the original 
language of the Sacred Scriptures. But Greek was the 
language of a Hellenistic community, and it was the Septua- 
gint version of the Scriptures that the Jews of Tarsus em- 

TheLaw ployed. 5 It was the child's lesson-book, and his lifelong 

book! s *° n familiarity with it is evidenced by his practice of quoting 
from it in after years. 6 For the first three or four years the 

have regarded it as a nickname bestowed on the Apostle by the scurrilous 
Antiochenes (cf. p. 67) during his sojourn among them. The fact is that both 
names were given him at his birth, and he dropped his Jewish and went by his 
Gentile name when he entered on his ministry as the Apostle of the Gentiles. 
1 Cf. Append. I. 

* Cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. u £. 

* Cf. Schurer, II. ii. p. 49. 

* Cf. Schurer, 11. ii. pp. 285 ff. ; Swete, Introd. to 0. T. in Greek, pp. 
369-80. 

6 Cf. Swete, ibid., pp. 389 ff., 400 ff. 



HIS EARLY YEARS 23 

scholars in the House of the Book were instructed in the 
rudiments ; and then, at the age of ten, they were engaged 
in learning the Law, 1 and by reason of the scarcity of books 
in those days when they were transcribed by hand and the diffi- 
culty of manipulating the cumbrous rolls, the method was, as 
it still is in the unchanging East, 2 oral repetition (mishnah). Mishnah 
The teaclier read out each sentence, and the pupils recited 
it in chorus until they had it committed to memory. It 
was an effective method. One inestimable advantage of it 
was that every Jew's mind was stored with Holy Writ, and 
the inaccessibility of the sacred volume thus mattered less. 
1 From the dawn of understanding/ says the Jewish historian, 3 
1 we learn the laws by heart and have them, as it were, en- 
graved on our souls.' It involved, however, obvious dis- 
advantages, not the least being that a Jewish writer was apt 
to trust to his memory ; and this is the main reason of the 
general laxity and frequent inaccuracy of New Testament 
quotations from the Old Testament. 

The education of a Jewish child was thus essentially re- Greek 
ligious. And it was exclusively Jewish. The Sacred Law Llteratare - 
was the text-book, and heathen literature was ignored. In- 
deed it was execrated by the more rigid Pharisees. They 
had a saying : ' Cursed be he who feeds swine : and cursed 
be he who teaches his son Greek literature ' ; 4 and it is related 
of R. Judah the Holy that, being asked when a man should 
teach his son Greek literature, he replied : ' At an hour which 
belongs neither to the day nor to the night,' since it was 
written : ' His delight is in the Law of the Lord ; and in His Ps. i. a. 
Law doth he meditate day and night.' 5 This, however, was 
an extreme attitude ; and though Saul was educated ' after Ac. xxvi. ^ 
the strictest sect of the Jewish religion,' it is hardly likely 
that he was indoctrinated with so ungenerous a sentiment. 

1 The curriculum of a child's education from its commencement in the home 
until manhood was thus defined {Abcth, v. 21, appendix) : 'At five years old he 
comes to the reading of Scripture, at ten to mishnah, at thirteen to the practice of 
the commands, at fifteen to tahnud (doctrine), at eighteen to marriage.' Cf. 
Schiirer, II. ii. p. 52. 

J Cf. Walter Tyndale, An Artist in Egypt, p. 107. 

3 JOs. Contra Apion., II. iS. 

* Cf. J. H. Ottho, Hist. Doct. Misn. pp. 68 ff. 

8 Cf . .Wetstein on Ac. vi. 1. 



24 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

His father was indeed a faithful Jew, but he was also a Roman 
citizen ; and even had he desired it, the intellectual isolation 
which was practicable at Jerusalem was impossible at Tarsus. 
He would not educate his son in Greek literature, but the 
atmosphere which he breathed would colour the lad's mind ; 
and since he spoke Greek, there was no linguistic barrier. He 
may not indeed have been instructed in all the wisdom of the 
Ac vii. 22. Greeks, as Moses was in that of the Egyptians ; but in after 
days he exhibited in his writings a flavour especially of the 
Ac xvii. Stoic philosophy, 1 and he could on occasion, as he proved in 
his speech before the Court of the Areiopagos, employ the in- 
tellectual mode of his day. Moreover, he was no stranger to 
Greek literature. He could quote to good purpose from the 
philosophers and the poets — his fellow-countryman Aratus, 
the philosophic poet Epimenides, and the comedian Menander. 2 
r epara- On attaining his thirteenth year a Jewish boy became ' a 
Rabbinate: son of the commandment/ 3 His childhood was over, and he 
left the House of the Book and began his preparation for his 
proper life-work. Saul had been devoted first by his parents' 
gracious ambition and latterly by his own choice to the career 
of a Rabbi, but he did not immediately address himself to 
the sacred studies which were the appointed pathway to that 
(i) a trade, high vocation. A Rabbi's labours were gratuitous. He 
Ex. xxiii. 8; exac ted no fees, and, like the ancient iudges, received no 

Dt. xvi. 19. ' ' J to > 

1 Cf. his use of Stoic tenns like atirdpiceia (2 Cor. ix. 8 ; I Tim. vi. 6), 
avrdpKTjs (Phil. iv. 11), <rvveL8r)<ns (Rom. ii. 15, ix. I, xiii. 5; I Cor. viii. 7, 10, 
12; etc.). 

* In Ac. xvii. 28 there are two quotations. (1) ev oury yap £0>fiev ical 
Kivotifieda Kal ia/iiv, a line, as a Syriac fragment discovered by Dr. Rendel Harris 
(cf. Moulton, Religions and Religion, p. 45) proves, from Epimenides. To the 
same passage belongs the hexameter Kprjres del \fsev<TTai, Kct/cd drjpia, yaartpes 
dpyai (Tit. i. 12). (2) rod yap /cot 7^05 kafxiv, a fragment of a hexameter from 
the Phccnomena of Aratus. Cf. Theoph. ad Autolyc. 11. p. 86 D (ed. Sylburg.), 
where the beautiful passage is quoted at large. Again, the iambic trimeter 
4>Sdpov<nv ijdrj xpr\<jrd ofiikiai Kami (1 Cor. xv. 33) belongs, according to Jerome 
(Comment, on Gal. iv. 24), to the Thais of Menander. Socrates Scholasticus (iii. 
10) ascribes it to Euripides, and possibly Menander borrowed it from the dramatist. 
There is here a corrective of the present-day disposition to regard the Apostle 
as 'non-literary,' belonging to 'the artisan non-literary classes' (cf. Deissmann, 
Light, pp. 238 ff. ; St. Paul, pp. 49 ff.). Much fairer is the judgment of Jerome . 
'Scisse autem Paulum, licet non ad perfectum, literas saeculares ipshis verba test- 
antur. ... Ex quibus et aliis evidens est Paulum non ignorasse literas ssecuiares.' 

8 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. 21 f. 



HIS EARLY YEARS 25 

gifts. His ministry was his reward, his disciples were his 
crown. ' He,' said R. Hillel, ' who serves himself with the crown 
of the Law perishes.' ' Make not thy disciples,' said R. 
Zadok, ' a crown, to win glory by them ; nor an axe, to live 
by them.' 1 Hence it was necessary for a Rabbi to earn his 
livelihood, and he not only ' laboured in the Law ' but en- 
gaged in some trade. R. Joseph was a miller ; R. Oschaja 
and R. Chanina were shoemakers ; R. Abba, R. Chanan, and 
R. Judah were tailors ; another R. Judah was a baker and 
a third a perfumer ; R. Mei'r, R. Nahum, and R. Nathan were 
clerks ; R. Jochanan was a sandal-maker ; R. Isaac was a 
smith ; R. Nehemiah was a potter ; R. Abin was a carpenter. 2 
Nor was a Rabbi's craft, however menial, reckoned a degrada- 
tion ; for, unlike the Greeks and Romans who accounted all 
trades ignoble and relegated them to slaves, the Jews esteemed 
honest work a sacred obligation. ' Love work,' said R. 
Shemaiah ; and it was a maxim that one who did not teach 
his son a trade taught him robbery. ' Excellent,' said R. 
Gamaliel, the son of R. Judah ha-Nasi, * is the study of the 
Law together with worldly business, for the practice of them 
both puts iniquity out of remembrance ; and all Law without 
work must fail at length, and occasion iniquity.' It was a 
noble ideal, yet it tended to abuse. It was a temptation for 
a Rabbi to become engrossed in his worldly business to the 
neglect of his sacred vocation ; and the great masters were 
insistent in their warnings. ' No one,' said R. Hillel, ' that 
has much traffic is wise.' ' Have little business,' said R. Meir, 
' and be busied in the Law.' 3 Nor were there lacking Rabbis cf. Mk. 
who shamed their high office by covetous and rapacious Lk.xx. : 47. 
exaction. 

Since Saul must earn his livelihood in after years, he was Tent- 
put to a trade when his schooldays were over. It was the makmg% 
craft of tent-making ; and this was a natural choice, since it 
was a thriving industry at Tarsus. Cilicia abounded in goats, 
and their hair was woven into a stout fabric, called cilicium, 
which served for tent-curtains. 4 

x Taylor, Sayings of the Fathers, I. 14, iv. 9. 
? Cf. Delitzsch, Jewish Artisan Life, V. 
' Taylor, ut supra, 1. 11 ; 11. 2, 6 ; iv. 14. 
• Plin. N. H. vi. 32. Cf. Schurer, 11. i. p, 44. 



26 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

( 2 ) 'The At the age of fifteen x he left home to prosecute his 
of inter- studies in the Rabbinical College — ' the House of Inter- 
pretation.' p re ^ a tion ' 2 as it was styled — at Jerusalem. It is no 
evidence of precocity that he began his college career so 
early. That was the age prescribed by Jewish usage, and 
it accorded with the narrow range of ancient education. It 
would seem that the age of pupilarity was even lower among 
the Greeks, since Apollonius of Tyana was but fourteen when, 
in a.d. ii, while Saul was still attending the House of the 
Book, he was brought to Tarsus by his father to study under 
Euthydemus. 3 John Knox was sixteen when he entered 
the University of Glasgow in 1521 ; John Calvin was four- 
teen when he entered the University of Paris in 1523 ; 
and Thomas Chalmers was only half-way through his twelfth 
year when he matriculated at St. Andrews in 1791. 
The Jewish There were many Rabbinical colleges. One, which 

colleges 

enjoyed considerable reputation, met ' in the vineyard at 

Jabneh ' ; and hence it has been inferred that ' a vineyard ' 

was a poetic designation of a school of the wise. The 

meaning, however, is merely that, whereas a provincial 

college, like a Christian church in early days, usually assembled 

in a private house, 4 that at Jabneh, by reason of its numbers, 

had its meeting-place in a vineyard. 5 The most celebrated 

Lk. ii. 46. f a n was naturally the college at Jerusalem, and it met 

teachers, within the Temple precincts. The teachers were variously 

Mk. x. 51 ; denominated. Their commonest designation was Rabbi. 

lo, XX. 10. 

Rab meant ' master,' and Rabbi ' my master,' Monsieur; and 
a more honourable form was Rabban or Rabbon, Rabboni. 
Mt. xxiii. Other titles were ' father ' (abba), ' teacher/ ' lawyers ' or 
v. 34/ * teachers of the Law,' ' scribes,' that is, ' men of the Scrip- 
ture,' ' the wise.' In the class-room the Rabbi occupied an 
Ac. xxii. 3 ; elevated dais, and the disciples sat round him on the floor ; 

cf Lie x 

3 9 '. whence they were said to be ' educated at his feet ' and to 

' powder themselves in the dust of the feet of the wise.' 6 
c£ e jo tU x. y ' Their study was the Sacred Law in the large sense of the 
34, xii. 34, term, including all the Jewish Scriptures — the Law, the 
Romfiii. Prophets, and the Hagiographa. The method was midrash, 



*9- 



1 cf. p. 23, n. 1. « uh*t®r\ na. 

t : • - •• 

• Cf. Philostr. Vit. Apoll. I. 7. * Taylor, ut supra, I. 4, 

• Cf. Schtirer, 11. i. pp. 325 f. • Taylor, ut supra, 



HIS EARLY YEARS 27 

' interpretation/ the investigation of the sacred text ; and 
this comprehended halachah and haggadah. Halachah was 
the systematisation of the precepts of the Law, the definition, 
application, and reconciliation of the legal code ; and it 
issued in a vast complexity of casuistical distinctions and 
vexatious restrictions. Haggadah, on the other hand, dealt 
with the historical and didactic portions of the Scriptures, 
elaborating and elucidating them by the aid of parable and 
legend. It pursued the method of allegorical exegesis, re- 
cognising in Scripture a fourfold meaning, denoted by the 
consonants of the word ' Paradise ' : peshat, the simple or 
literal meaning ; remaz, the suggested meaning ; derush, the 
meaning evolved by investigation ; and sod, the mystic 
meaning. 1 

The Rabbinical theology was always subtle and often Saul's 
fantastic ; and Saul's training in the House of Interpretation ^ bm " 
at Jerusalem left an abiding imprint on his mind. He 
handled the Scriptures after the Rabbinical fashion, and 
instances abound in his writings. Thus his idea of the 1 Cor. x. 
smitten rock which followed the Israelites in their wilderness x " 4 ' 
wanderings is a haggadic midrash ; while its application to 
Christ and his sacramental interpretation of their immersion 
in the Red Sea and their overshadowing by the cloud and 
their eating of the manna are examples of Rabbinical 
allegorising. So also is his interpretation of Sarah and Gal. iv. 21- 
Hagar, the free woman and the bond, and their children. 3I - 
Again, his linguistically impossible argumentation that since 
the promise to Abraham speaks of his * seed ' and not his m. 16. 
' seeds/ it refers not to his descendants, the Jewish people, 
but to Christ, is a characteristic example of Rabbinical 
dialectic, precisely similar to the argument that, since in the 
Lord's remonstrance with Cain : ' the voice of thy brother's Gen. iv. 10, 
blood crieth unto me from the ground,' the word ' blood ' 
is in Hebrew plural, the meaning is that in slaying Abel Cain 
had slain not only him but all his posterity. 2 And thus in 
that argument with his Judaising converts of Galatia the 

1 Of. Schurer, II. i. pp. 306 ff. ; Robertson Smith, 0. T. in Jewish Church, 
in. nypn (from *-pn * go ') is properly ' method,' ' rule ' directing one's goings 

fnun is 'narrative,' "legend.' 

Tf 

? Mish. Sanked., IV. 5. 



28 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Apostle, perhaps consciously, turned the weapons of his 
Judaistic adversaries against themselves. 
Theiniiu- There was, however, a still deeper impression which his 

ence of 

Gamaliel, training in the House of Interpretation left on the mind of 
Saul. The glory of the College at that period was the 
celebrated Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder. He was a grandson 
of Hillel the Great, who had been distinguished by the 
gentleness of his disposition and the liberality of his senti- 
ments, presenting herein a marked contrast to his stern and 
rigid colleague, the Rabbi Shammai. ' A man/ it is written 
in the Talmud, ' should be gentle like Hillel, and not irritable 
like Shammai ' ; and it is related by way of illustration that 
three Gentiles once visited the two Rabbis successively to 
discuss the Jewish faith, and afterwards they said : ' The 
irritability of Shammai sought to drive us from the world : 
the gentleness of Hillel brought us nigh under the wings of 
the Shekinah/ 1 
His toier- Gamaliel was Hillel's kinsman no less after the spirit than 
AcTv. 34- after the flesh. He appears only once in the New Testament, 
4 °* and his behaviour on that occasion reveals his character. 

The Sanhedrin had arraigned the Apostles and was minded 
to put them to death ; but Gamaliel interposed. ' Refrain 
from these men/ he pleaded, ' and let them alone ; for if 
this counsel or this work be of men, it will be overthrown ; 
but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. 
Perhaps you may be found even to be fighting against God.' 
It is not surprising that the idea should have arisen that 
he was actually a Christian, 2 though this is a mere fable born 
of his truly Christian spirit. The legitimacy of studying 
Greek literature was one of the articles of controversy be- 
tween the schools of Hillel and Shammai, and Gamaliel 
maintained the liberal attitude. His son, the Rabbi Simon, 
is reported to have said that of the thousand young men 
who had studied in the House of Interpretation at Jerusalem 
in his father's time, no fewer than one half had learned 
Greek wisdom. 3 
prestige. Bitterly as he was regarded by the narrower sort of 

* Taylor, ut supra, i. 16, n. 33. 

* Cf. Epistola Lucianim Works of Augustine, VII. pp. U26fL (Migne). 

* Cf- Wetstein on Ac. vi. 1. 



HIS EARLY YEARS 29 

Pharisees in his day, Gamaliel enjoyed the popular esteem. 
He was one of four Doctors of the Law who were accorded 
the honourable title of Rabban. 1 And his memory was 
cherished and revered in after generations. A saying was 
current that ' from the day when Rabban Gamaliel the 
Elder died, the glory of the Law ceased, and purity and 
abstinence died.' 2 

tr>was no small advantage to Saul that during the most His influ- 
/ impressionable period of his life he should have been sub- sauT° n 
jected to the gracious influence of this wise and large-hearted 
teacher ; and in after years he gratefully acknowledged how Ac. xxu. 3. 
much he owed to his ' education at the feet of Gamaliel. * ; 
The profit, however, did not immediately appear. 3 A dafk*" 
experience of moral and spiritual conflict lay before the 
young Rabbi ; and in his quest after peace he was betrayed 
into wild excesses of cruel fanaticism. But the lessons which 
he had learned in the House of Interpretation were never 
obliterated from his soul, and they played no small part in 
his religious and intellectual emancipation. 

Despite the liberality of his sentiments Gamaliel was Saul's Rab- 
none the less a Pharisee, devoted to the Law and loyal to mSSSy at 
the national traditions. Under his tuition Saul lost nothing Tarsus, 
of his early piety, and he left the Rabbinical College with a 
disciplined and furnished mind, well equipped for the office 
of ' a teacher of Israel.' Jerusalem was the chief home of 
Rabbinical wisdom, but there were Rabbis not only in the cf. Lk. v. 
provinces of the Holy Land but in the great Hellenistic I7> 
communities. It is proved by inscriptions that there were 
Rabbis at Rome, 4 and there would be Rabbis also at Tarsus. 
It appears that his native city remained Saul's home until he cf. Gai. i. 
broke with his old associations and entered on his career as a " • Ac ' "* 
Christian Apostle ; and it is probable that he betook himself 
thither on the completion of his college course, and exercised 
his ministry in the synagogue which had been the spiritual 
home of his childhood, plying at the same time his craft of 
tent-making. 

1 Cf. Schlirer, n. i. p. 316. * Taylor, ut supra, r. 17, n. 35. 

* Hence Renan and others have regarded the connection between Gamaliel and 
Saul as a Lucan fiction. 

4 Cf. Schiirer, 11. i. pp. 314, 319. 



3 o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

The duty of There is no explicit record of his employments during this 
period ; but one event it seems necessary to assume, nor is 
his own testimony lacking. Among the Jews eighteen was 
the proper age for marriage ; * and marriage was accounted 
a sacred obligation. Its neglect was deemed at once a 
calamity and a crime. To go childless meant not only that, 

Dt. xxv. 6; when the man died, ' his name was blotted out of Israel/ 2 

xviit ^8 m * kut that he slew his posterity and thus ' lessened the image 
of God.' 3 Hence marriage was a religious ordinance ; and 
the two hundred and thirteenth commandment in The 
Book of the Precepts is * to have a wife in purity ' in obedi- 

Gen. i. 28. ence to the Scripture, ' Be fruitful and multiply ' ; wherefore 
Maimonides affirmed that if a man passed the age of twenty 
without marrying, unless it were that he might absolutely 
devote himself to the study of the Law, he transgressed a 
positive commandment. 4 It seems likely that Saul, a 

Saul's devout Jew and a strict Pharisee, would marry in due 
course ; and the inference is confirmed by the fact that he 
was subsequently enrolled in the high court of the Sanhedrin 

cf. Ac. and on at least one memorable occasion participated in its 
judicial procedure. For it was required, among the qualifi- 
cations of a Sanhedrist, that he should be not only a married 
man but a father, inasmuch as one who was softened by 
domestic affection would be disposed to mercy in his judg- 
ments. 5 

His widow- It would thus appear that Saul not only married duly but 
had issue ; and the presumption is borne out by his own 
testimony. It is indeed true that in the days of his apostolic 

Cf. 1 Cor. activities he would seem, on his own testimony, to have had 

ix s. 

no wife ; and while recognising the legitimacy of marriage, 
he held it prudent, in view of the difficulties which then 
Cf. 1 Cor. beset the Christians, that they should follow his example 



vu. 



1 Cf. p. 23, n. 1. Maimonides puts it at sixteen or seventeen. Cf. Lightfoot, 
Hot. Hebr., on 1 Cor. vii. 6. 

2 Cf . Shem. Rabb. lxxiii. 1 : ' These four are reckoned as dead — the blind, the 
leper, the poor, and the childless.' Lightfoot on Lk. ix. 60. 

3 Jevamoth, lxiii. 2 : ' Whosoever doth not apply himself to begetting and 
multiplying is even as a homicide. It is as though he lessened the image cf 
God.' ' 

4 Cf. Lightfoot on 1 Cor. vii. 6. 

6 Sanhed. xxxvi. 2. Cf. Selden, De Synedr. 11. vii. 7. 



HIS EARLY YEARS 31 

and shun domestic responsibilities and embarrassments. It 
does not follow, however, that he had never been married ; 
for his counsel to widows and widowers is that they should iCor. 
remain so, as he had done, 1 and this is an express declaration v 
of his condition. He had married after the Jewish fashion, 
but his wife was now deceased, and so also was her child, 
and he had resolved to remain a widower. It is significant 
that one so affectionate should have maintained an almost 
unbroken silence regarding this mournful chapter of his life- 
story ; and in view of the sternness of his attitude toward cf. 1 Cor. 

Y1 V Q/f *2 "" 

women it would seem as though there were here a hidden r fim.' a. 
tragedy and a bitter memory. 2 II " 15 * 

Those meagre and somewhat precarious suggestions con- Pharisaic 
stitute the sole surviving record of Saul's Rabbinical career Staining 
at Tarsus. It was a period of some fifteen years, and it is "|^ teous " 
no less obscure than the silent years which our Lord passed 
at Nazareth betwixt His visit to the House of Interpretation l> «. 41. 
at Jerusalem in a.d. 8, and His manifestation unto Israel in 
a.d. 26. In truth, however, nothing vital is lost ; for his 
real biography during those years is not the record of his 
outward life, but his inward experience, the working of his 
mind and soul. And this is plainly evident. He was a 

1 His words are A^yw 5£ tols dydftots Kai reus x^/mis, 'to widowers and widows.' 
The masc. %%>os (viduus) was very rare, and its place was supplied by dyafios. 
The latter term signified 'unmarried,' and denoted either one whose partner was 
lost (cf. vers. II, 34) or one who had never been married. The former is 
certainly its meaning here. Cf. Euth. Zig. : ' dydjxovs ' yap ou tous irapdivovs 
evravdd (p7)<rii>, dAAa roi/s diro^aXSuras OTrdxxdrjTroTe ras yafxerds. Kai touto St/Ao? dirb 
tQv 'x^pwy,' as tovtols cvvira^ev. The Apostle deals first with widowers and 
widows (vers. 8, 9), and then with virgins, male and female (vers. 25-28). There 
are two traditions on this question. One affirms that he was married like the rest 
of the Apostles (cf. Ignatian Epist. ad Philad. iv: Ylerpov ical HavXov Kai tcDf 
dWojv diroGT&kwv rots yd/xois 7rpo<ro/j.i\7]<TdvTU)v), but it is weakened by its appeal to 
the idea (cf. p. 519) that by yvrjaie <rvv$vye (Phil. iv. 3) he means 'my true spouse.' 
Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom, in. vi. 53 ; Eus. H. E. III. 30 ; Orig. In Epist. ad 
Rom. Comment. I. i. On the other hand Tertullian {De Monogam. 3) and 
Jerome {Epist. XXII : Ad Eustochium de Custodia Virginitatis) represent him as 
unmarried ; but they were biassed by their celibate ideal. For the same reason 
their opinion prevailed in the mediaeval Church. Cf. Chaucer, The Wife 0] 
Bath's Prologtce, 79 : ' I woot wel, that th' apostel was a mayde.' 

2 Hence may perhaps have originated the Ebionite slander that the Apostle was 
not a Jew at all, but a Gentile who with the desire of marrying a priest's daughter 
1 ecame a proselyte, and when she rejected him, turned against the Law. Cf. 
Epiphan. xxx. 16. 



32 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Pharisee ; and Pharisaism was in its essence a quest after 
righteousness. The problem was how a man could be 
righteous before God ; and the answer was : By keeping the 
Law and fulfilling His commandments. And thus religion 
was a scrupulous observance not merely of the written Law 
of Moses but of the unwritten law of the Scribes, that inter- 
Mk. vii. 3 . minable code of ceremonial regulations and restrictions which 

was known as ' the tradition of the Elders/ 

its failure. It was a fatal method, and it issued inevitably either 

in self-righteousness or in despair. Unspiritual men were 

easily satisfied. When they had performed the prescribed 

routine of ablution, fasting, and the like, it seemed to them 

that they had fulfilled God's requirements ; and they 

boasted their perfect righteousness, Hke the Rabbi Chanina, 

of whom it is told that he thus challenged the Angel of 

Death : ' Bring hither the Book of the Law, and see whether 

there be aught written in it which I have not observed.' * 

Righteousness was with such an affair of external observance ; 

and when they had cleansed the outside of the cup and the 

Cf. Mt; platter, it seemed to them that all was well though the 

£xiu.25„ ». j ns ^ e rema i n ed foul. The majority were such, and they 

brought reproach on the whole order. There were, however, 

Pharisees of a nobler spirit. These had a vision of the infinite 

i^Ki. viii. holiness of God and ' the plague of their own hearts ' ; and 

ceremonial observances could not satisfy them. They 

realised their inward estrangement from God, and yearned 

for reconciliation. They knew no other way than the 

keeping of the Law, and they addressed themselves to it 

with eager zeal ; but when they had done all, they remained 

mljix. unsatisfied. Like that young Pharisee in the Gospel-story 

they had performed every requirement of the Law, but they 

were still strangers to the peace of God. They had done 

everything which they knew, and it was insufficient ; and 

their cry was : ' What lack I yet ? ' 

Sauls dis- And so it was with Saul of Tarsus. He began his career 

STinsuffi- with unquestioning faith in the efficacy of the Pharisaic way 

ciency. Q f p eace Ari^ jj- j s p 0SS jble that he might have pursued it to 

the last without misgiving but for the shock of a stern 

awakening. In after days he wrote his own spiritual 

1 Cf. Wetstein on Mt xix. 20. 



HIS EARLY YEARS 33 

biography, and told the dark yet blessed story. ' I had Rom. vii 
never/ he says, ' recognised sin save through law. For I 7 ' 11 ' 
had not known lust had not the Law kept saying : " Thou 
shalt not lust." And sin got an outlet through the command- 
ment to work out in me every sort of lust ; for apart from 
law sin is dead. I was alive apart from law once ; but when 
the commandment came, sin sprang into life, while as for 
me, I died ; and the commandment which aimed at life — 
I found it resulted in death. For sin got an outlet through 
the commandment to " deceive " me and through it to slay 
me/ Here, with a reticence which evinces the painfulness 
of the confession, the veil is half lifted from a dark episode 
of those unrecorded years. What precisely it may have 
been is unrevealed, and surmise were banal. It is indeed 
likely that it was no serious transgression ; for what might 
pass with most as a peccadillo would torture a conscience so 
sensitive. The confession, however, should not be attenuated. 
In a nature so ardent and impulsive there are ever tragic 
possibilities ; and it is no marvel that his soul should have 
been swept by a gust of passion and defiled by a deed of 
impurity. 

It was the supreme crisis of his life. It discovered to him Redoubled 
■ the plague of his heart ' ; and he set himself with redoubled devotlon - 
devotion to attaining unto righteousness by the only way he 
knew — the Pharisaic method of ceremonial observance, the 
performance of ' the works of the Law/ But his labour 
proved unavailing. He had realised his soul's alienation 
from God, and external rites never touched the deep-seated 
malady. Still he entertained as yet no doubt of the efficacy 
of the method, and its failure only inspired him to more 
strenuous endeavour. There was no Jew in Tarsus so ardent, 
no Pharisee so punctilious, no Rabbi so unwearied. A cf. Ac. 
Hellenistic community afforded no adequate arena for his gSl'uU 
zeal. The Sacred Capital was his fitting sphere, and in due 
course his opportunity arrived. 



Ac. vi-yiii, 

12. 



THE MARTYRDOM OF STEPHEN 



* Testis tuus est in ccelis, 
Testis verax et fidelis 

Testis innocentiae. 
Nomen habes coronati, 
Te tormenta decet pati 

Pro corona glorias. 



* Pro corona non marcenti 
Perfer brevis vim tormenti, 

Te manet victoria. 
Tibi fiet mors natalis, 
Tibi poena terminalis 
Dat vitae primordia.' 

Adam de S. Victore. 



The Lord Momentous events had been transpiring in the Holy Land 
^o SauTTn during Saul's sojourn at Tarsus. When he betook' himself 
hL flSh ° f *° ^ e H° use °^ Interpretation in a.d. 15 at the age of fifteen 
years, our Lord was living obscurely at Nazareth and earning 
His daily bread in a carpenter's shop. The years passed, 
and in the spring of a.d. 26 He was manifested at Bethany 
beyond Jordan as the Messiah, the Promised Saviour, and 
entered on His public ministry ; and in the spring of a.d. 29 
He was crucified on Calvary and raised from the dead on the 
third day. Tidings of that wondrous ministry and its more 
wondrous consummation must have reached Saul at Tarsus ; 
and, moreover, since he would repair to the great Feasts, 
he must have been in Jerusalem on each of the occasions 
when our Lord was there, including the last, the tragic 
Passion-week. Yet it is remarkable that he never encoun- 
tered Jesus and never even saw Him. In after years, when 
his apostleship was challenged on the ground that he lacked 
the essential qualification of fellowship with the Master in 
the days of His flesh, his only defence was that he had been 
vouchsafed a vision of the Risen Lord on the road to 
Damascus. And indeed it is hardly surprising that he should 
never have encountered Him in Jerusalem. The rulers 
regarded Jesus with contemptuous disdain and, latterly, 
with bitter animosity. It was only when they hoped to 
entangle Him in some damaging controversy, and thus dis- 
credit Him in the eyes of the people, that they deigned to 



Cf. Ac. i. 

21, 22. 

Cf. 1 Cor. 
ix. 1, xv. 8. 



Cf. M 
xxi. 2 
•xxii. 






THE MARTYRDOM OF STEPHEN 35 

approach Him as He taught in the Temple court ; and they Cf. jo. vtt. 
generally dealt with Him through their officers. Saul would 32 ' 45 ' 
share the contempt of his order for the unschooled heretic, 
and would never cross His path. He would have deemed it 
an intolerable degradation to mingle with the rude crowd 
which thronged to hear Him. 

He would share also the satisfaction of the rulers when the Progress 01 
Lord was crucified. It appeared as though the trouble were the ospe ' 
ended and the heresy stamped out ; but this proved a vain 
hope. The Gospel did not perish. On the contrary, it 
acquired an unprecedented vitality, and the scene of its 
victorious operation was no longer remote Galilee but the 
Sacred Capital. On the Day of Pentecost, little over a Ac h. 41, 
month after their seeming triumph, the rulers were startled 47 ' 
by the conversion of some three thousand of the populace ; 
and never a day passed without fresh accessions to the 
hated community, until presently it numbered over five iv. 4. 
thousand men, exclusive of women and children, and Jeru- v. 28. 
salem was ringing with the teaching of the Apostles. 

It was indeed an amazing phenomenon, inexplicable save Reasons, 
by the facts which the New Testament alleges. The chief 
of these was the Resurrection of the Lord and the effusion 
of the Holy Spirit. And it was mainly this that won the 
people and startled the rulers. If it were indeed true that 
the Crucified had been raised from the dead and was living 
and manifesting His heavenly power, then the crucifixion 
was an impious crime, and in proclaiming the Resurrection the Cf. iv. 2, 
Apostles were laying a terrible indictment against its perpe- v " 
trators. It accentuated the popular appeal of their message 
and its terror for the rulers that they believed and pro- Cf. Hi. 19- 
claimed that the Risen Lord would presently return in His 2 
glory to judge the world. Nor should it be forgotten that 
the primitive Apostles were indubitably endowed with 
miraculous powers. The evidence is irrefragable. It is no 
mere legend of a later age, but their own personal and direct 
testimony. They repeatedly refer to the phenomenon in Cf. Gai. Hi, 
their letters, and always as a recognised fact, familiar to xri. 9, °£' 
their readers. It was only temporary, but it did not imme- 
diately vanish from the Church on the departure of the 
Apostles. It gradually diminished until in the fourth century 



36 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

as St. Chrysostom certifies, 1 it had quite disappeared ; but, 
on the testimony of St. Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus, it 
still persisted in the second century and, on the testimony of 
Tertullian, lingered on into the third. 2 Nor indeed is either 
the gift or its withdrawal inexplicable. It was a providential 
dispensation. At its first planting Christianity required 
special aids, but once it had taken root, these were no longer 
needed, and it was left to its normal development. 3 
chagrin of The triumphant progress of the Gospel was galling and 
Rulers" disconcerting to the Jewish rulers. They would gladly have 
cf. Ac. iv. taken strong measures with the Apostles and dealt with them 
17-42. v as * nev na ci dealt with the Lord ; and they actually made 
cf. Mt. xxi. several ineffectual attempts to intimidate them. But they 
i5c. X xxii. 2! were restrained by the same prudential consideration which 
had repeatedly shielded the Lord from their animosity, and 
cf. Ac. iv. postponed the final catastrophe : the Apostles were the heroes 
of the populace, and their molestation would have excited 
a dangerous tumult. Thus the Gospel went its way un- 
restrained, and the Church grew apace. 
Primitive But the course of events brought the rulers the oppor- 
commun-. ^ un ^y w } 1 j c ] 1 they desired. There was much poverty in 
Jerusalem at that period ; and since Christianity was a 
popular movement appealing to ' the common people/ it 
numbered many poor among its adherents. The spirit of 
brotherhood was strong in the first believers ; and, recog- 
nising the obligation of mutual succour, they organised the 
Ac iv. 32, Church on the principle of communism. ' There was one 

q A Q C * cf* A A 

u. 45. ' heart and soul, and not one said that any of his possessions 
was his own, but everything was common to them. There 
was not one in need among them ; for all that had been 
owners of lands or houses, would sell them and bring the 
prices the things fetched and lay them at the feet of the 
Apostles ; and distribution would be made to each as one 

1 In Epist. II ad Thess. Horn. IV. ad init. 

8 Just. M. Apol. 1. p. 45 A, B (edit. Sylburg.) ; Iren. II. xlviii. 2, xlix. 3; 
Tert. Apol. 37. 

8 Cf. Aug. De Civ. Dei, xxil. viii. 1: '"Why," say they, "are those 
miracles which you declared were wrought, not wrought now ? " I might indeed 
answer that they were necessary ere the world believed, to the end that the 
world might believe. Whoso still seeks for prodigies that he may believe, is 
himself a great prodigy, in that, while the world believes, he does not.' 






THE MARTYRDOM OF STEPHEN 37 

had need.' There was no compulsion. If one chose, he cf. v. 4. 
might keep his property ; and when the first wave of enthu- 
siasm had subsided, there were believers in Jerusalem who, 
though generous in their hospitality, retained their houses cf. xii. 12 
and their wealth. But at the outset communism was the 
prevailing order ; and since men of substance were not 
lacking, their sacrifice afforded abundant provision and 
destitution was unknown. 

It was a noble ideal, and consonant with the spirit of the TheEssene 
Gospel ; yet it was not a Christian invention. Communism exam P le - 
was en Vair at that period, and it was already practised by 
the Jewish sect of the Essenes. 1 The latter abjured private 
property, and each novice surrendered all that he possessed 
to the superintendents of the order to be employed for the 
general good. 2 It would s&em that the Apostles were here 
inspired by the example of the Essenes ; and though they 
did not withdraw their followers from the world, they 
imitated those holy anchorites in one particular. They in- 
stituted a common table ; and just as the common meal of 'The daily 
the Essenes was sacramental, being prepared by priests and JSSn?* 1 *' 
preceded by ceremonial ablution, so ' the daily ministration ' 
of the believers was hallowed by a eucharistic celebration, 
either at the commencement 3 or at the conclusion. 4 This 
common meal was variously denominated ' the Love-feast/ Cf.jud.12; 
' the Reception/ or ' the Ministry of Tables ' ; 5 and it was \ 3 r.v!' 
a gracious institution. Nevertheless it led to grave abuse, its abuse. 
It will appear in due course how it desecrated the Lord's 
Table among the Gentile converts at Corinth ; 6 and it 
tended also to corrupt the Church by alluring into her ranks 
unworthy professors who desired only worldly advantage, 
' thinking that religion was a source of profit/ 7 It was 

1 Cf. pp. 447, 549 ff- 

8 Cf. Schurer, II. ii. pp. 195 ff. Apollonius is said to have inculcated a similar 
system. Cf. Philostr. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. iv. 13. 

8 Cf. Chrys. In I Epist. ad. Cor. Horn. XXVII. I : tt)s <rwa£ea>s dxaprurflekr^t 
tiera ttjv rQiv fivarrjolw Koivbtvlav iiri koivtjv iravres rjetrav edw^tav. 

4 Didache, 10 : fierd 52 to ipurkijffdTJvai ovtcos evxo-pi-<TT^<raTe. 

6 Cf. Julian (fragment), Loeb Class. Libr. ii. p. 338 : Sta ttjs Xcyo/x^vrjs rap* 
avrois 'dy&Trrjs ' ical ' vttoSox^s ' * at ' SiaicovLas rpaTre^Qiv ' (cf. Ac. vi. 2). Apostol. 
Constii. II. 28 : tois ds ayd-ntjv iJToi Soxy", ws 6 Ktfpios thvbfxao-t (Lk, xiv. 13), • 
Tpoaipovfitvois KaXeir, 

* Cf. p. 286. 7 Of. Julian, ui supra, p. 337, 



38 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 






probably this scandal that soon discredited the fair ideal 
which was cherished in the enthusiasm of early days. At 
all events, ere many years had passed, the initial communism 
was largely abandoned, and ' the poor saints ' at Jerusalem 
needed the succour of Gentile liberality. 1 
Hebrews At the outset, however, ' the daily ministration ' was an 
Hellenists institution. It was easily managed at first ; but as the 
numbers multiplied, it grew more and more difficult. And 
the embarrassment became intolerable when a dissension 
arose — the Church's earliest controversy. She was indeed 
as yet exclusively Jewish, yet she was by no means homo- 
geneous. There were two sections in her ranks. One was 
the Hebrews — the Palestinian Jews, whose pride was that 
they had always breathed the air of the Holy Land and never 
been polluted by contact with heathen soil. And the other 
was the Hellenists, 2 those Jews who had settled or been born 
abroad, and had returned to the Holy City that they might 
spend the evening of their lives beneath the shadow of the 
Temple. These had indeed remained passionately loyal 
to their ancestral faith, yet they had generally acquired a 
certain liberality and contracted a Gentile colour of speech 
and manner ; and they were consequently suspect in the 
eyes of the narrow- Hebrews, and were not unnaturally dis- 
posed to resentment. How keen the jealousy was appears 
from the fact that the Hellenists hailing from the various 
Cf. Ac. vi. 9. Gentile countries had built synagogues of their own in 
Jerusalem, where they might meet unmolested when they 
visited the Holy City or returned thither to reside. 
Hellenist The Church included representatives of both these 
tionf ' " sections of Judaism ; and it is not surprising that, rightly or 
wrongly, a suspicion arose among the Hellenists that their 
destitute widows were unfairly treated in the daily minis- 
tration. And the grievance would be the more acute since 
Ac. iv. 36, the Hellenists, like Barnabas of Cyprus, were the wealthier, 
and it was their generosity that had mainly provided the 
common good. 
Election of The administration lay with the Apostles, and the odium 
Deacons, fell upon them. It was a perilous situation, inimical to the 

1 Cf. pp. 73 ff. 

* 'EXXvwra*, 'Grecians' (A.V.), ' Grecian Jews ' (R.V.), 



THE MARTYRDOM OF STEPHEN 39 

Church's unity and her continued prosperity ; and they 
promptly and effectively redressed it. They convened a 
general assembly of the Church, and proposed that a board 
of seven should be elected to superintend ' the ministry of 
the tables ' in order that they might be free to devote them- 
selves to their proper office — ' the ministry of the Word/ 
The procedure exemplifies the democratic constitution of the 
primitive Church. The Apostles did not issue a decree. They 
submitted a proposal, and it was approved ; and thereafter 
the assembly proceeded to elect its representatives. The 
seven men thus called by the Church and ordained by the 
Apostles were Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, 
Parmenas, and Nicolaus. Seven was a sacred number, but 
it was probably selected for practical reasons. ~ The duties 
demanded so many for their effective discharge ; and doubt- 
less the competing interests were appropriately represented. 
Three would be Hebrews, 1 three Hellenists, and the seventh, 
the proselyte Nicolaus, would represent that small though 
by no means insignificant section — the converts from 
heathenism who had passed from the Synagogue into the 
Church. 

Thus originated the order of the Deacons, literally Their 
• Ministers/ who were charged especially with the care of quaiS- 
the poor and afflicted and generally with the supervision of tions - 
practical affairs. 2 It was indeed a practical office, yet it Cf. 1 Tim, 
was in no wise secular ; and, like their successors, the seven m " " IS * 
were chosen not alone for their practical wisdom, but for 
their spiritual endowments. Of four of„ them nothing 
further is recorded, and Nicolaus, though personally blame- 
less, was destined to an unhappy notoriety as the author of 
a mischievous heresy ; 3 but they were all men of godly 

1 The fact that all the seven bore Greek names does not imply that none of 
them were Hebrews, since every Jew had a Gentile as well as a Jewish name 
(cf. p. 21). 

2 The Seven are not indeed expressly designated 'Deacons' (8i.&koj/oi), and 
Chrys. supposes that they were appointed for a merely temporary emergency ; but 
the terms diaKovLa and SiaKoveiv are employed (cf. vers. I, 2, 4), and their appoint- 
ment was generally recognised in the early Church as the institution of the 
permanent office. Thus Irenseus calls Stephen * the first Deacon ' (in. xii. 13), 
'the first elected to the Deaconship by the Apostles ' (iv. xxvi. 1). 

3 Cf. p. 526. 



4 o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



f^T> 



repute, and two of them attained eminent distinction for 
service to the Kingdom of Heaven beyond the limits of their 
cf. Ac viii. special office. Philip was an effective preacher, insomuch 
40 I3 x^ 6 8 that ne was kn own as ' tne Evangelist.' And Stephen was 
no less richly endowed with spiritual and intellectual gifts. 
Later tradition, after its wont, reckons him as well as Philip 
Lk. x. i. among the Seventy Apostles whom our Lord, when setting 
out on His last journey to Jerusalem, ' sent two and two 
before His face into every city and place whither He Himself 
was about to come ' ; * but this is unlikely, since he was 
evidently a Hellenist and, dwelling remote from the Holy 
Land, he could not have been a companion of the Lord. He 
may, however, have known Him in the days of His flesh, and 
he had at all events drunk deep of His grace. He was elected 
to the Deaconship because he was ' a man full of faith and 
the Holy Spirit ' ; and he had already approved himself in 
' the ministry of the Word ' ere he was called to ' the ministry 
of the tables/ 
Stephen's It seemed as though he were destined to a high career of 
inHeiienSt evangelical enterprise ; but another destiny had been 
goJues ordained for him. He was to glorify the Lord by his death, 
and thus, as it proved, still more effectively advance the 
Kingdom of Heaven. It was the spring of the year a.d. 33, 2 
and the paschal celebration had brought the customary 
troops of pilgrims to the Holy City. She was thronged 
with worshippers from near and far, and the Hellenistic 
synagogues were crowded with strangers. Here Stephen 
found a golden opportunity. Himself a Hellenist, he visited 
the synagogues, and there presented the Gospel. It would 
have been impossible for each Hellenistic community to 
maintain a separate synagogue at Jerusalem, and so each 
synagogue represented a group of adjacent and sympathetic 
communities. And there were two where Stephen's argu- 
ments created an especial stir. One was the synagogue of 
the North African Jews from Libya with its capital Cyrene 
and Egypt with its capital Alexandria ; and the other the 
synagogue of the Jews of the Provinces of Asia and Cilicia, 
comprehending probably all the intervening sweep of 



1 Cf.Epiphan. Har. XX. 4. 
* Cf. Append. I. 



THE MARTYRDOM OF STEPHEN 41 

southern Asia Minor along the Eastern Trade Route. 1 It was 
natural that Stephen should encounter keen discussion in 
these two synagogues ; for in the one there were Jews from 
the brilliant city of Alexandria, men like Apollos, both Ac. xv\u. 
learned and eloquent and versed in the Scriptures ; while in 24 ' 
the other there were Jews not only from Ephesus but from 
Tarsus, which in those days more than rivalled Alexandria's 
fame. 

Among the latter was Saul. He had come to Jerusalem Saul his 
for the Passover ; and he would certainly attend the Agonist, 
synagogue of the Cilicians and Asians, and hear Stephen's cf. Ac. vii 
arguments and bear his part in the disputation. It would 5 * 
be a sharp encounter, but he found himself overmatched. 
His weapons of Rabbinical dialectic were impotent against 
his antagonist's wisdom, a wisdom which he had been 
taught by the Holy Spirit. It was a humiliating experience 
for the young Rabbi and his fellows, and it exasperated 
them. Worsted in argument, they would not acknowledge 
the truth. They raised the cry of blasphemy, and proceeded a charge of 
to indict Stephen before the Sanhedrin. Their charge was 
that he had announced the overthrow of the Temple and the 
supersession of the Law ; and they produced witnesses to 
support it. 

It was a repetition of the scene which had been enacted Arraign- 
there just four years previously, when the Lord was arraigned JheSanhe- 6 
on that self-same charge ; and it is no wonder that Stephen's £ rin - 
heart was stirred at the thought. It was remarked and xxvi. 59 -6i. 

1 Cf. Ac. vi. 9 — a crux inter prelum. The problem is twofold : I. The 
meaning of AifiepTivw. Commonly explained as 'Freemen' {Libertini), i.e. 
descendants of Pompey's Jewish prisoners (cf. p. 20). Cf. Chrys. : Aifieprivoi 5£, 
ol '^oifiaiwv aire\€vdepot gi/tw koXovvtcll. More probably, however, it is a place- 
name like KvpT]vaL(i)v and 'A\eijav8p£u)i> y and there was a town Libertum in 
N. Africa which sent a bishop {Episcopus Libertinensis) to the Synod of Carthage 
in a.d. 411. Cf. Suid. : AifSepTivoi" Bvofia Zdvovs. Wetstein regards Aifieprlvtav 
as an alternative form of Aifivarlvwv, and Vers. Armen. reads 'Libyans' (cf. 
Ac. ii. ro). 2. The number of synagogues. (1) Only one, 'the Synagogue of 
the Libertines,' comprehending the four subsequent nationalities (Calv., Beng.). 
(2) Two, ' the Synagogue of the Libertines, Cyrenaeans, and Alexandrians ' and 
'the Jews of Cilicia and Asia' (Winer- Moul ton, p. 160, n. 3). (3) Five, 'the 
Synagogue of the Libertines, that of the Cyrenaeans, that of the Alexandrians, 
that of the Cilicians, and that of the Asians (Schiirer, II. ii. p. 57, n. 44). Thi*, 
however, would require the reiteration of ttjs in each case. 



defence. 



42 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

long remembered that, as he stood before the High Priest, 
his face shone and looked like the face of an angel. 1 After 
the charge had been laid and the witnesses had given their 
evidence, the High Priest put the question : ' Is this so ? ' 
and he entered upon his defence with the reverential preface 
which became a loyal Jew in addressing that august court : 
* Brethren and fathers, hearken.' 
Stephen's He began with the first count of the indictment — his 
alleged statement that ' Jesus the Nazarene would overthrow 
the Holy Place/ He did not deny it ; he justified it by 
demonstrating, in a long resume of the national history, how 
.unessential the Temple was. It had been founded late, 
and its insufficiency had been proclaimed in the very hour 
of its institution. The birth of the nation dated from the 
call of Abraham nigh two thousand years before, and there 
was no Temple in Abraham's day. He had been a wanderer, 
and so had all the patriarchs for four centuries. Then in the 
land of bondage Moses was born. He was ordained of God 
as the deliverer of His people, yet they did not recognise him. 
They drove him from their midst, and he betook himself to 
the land of Midian. It was there, not in a Temple but in a 
heathen wilderness, that God appeared to him in the burning 
bush and called him to his task. He led the people forth 
from Egypt, and again God appeared to him, not in a 
Temple but in the wilderness of Sinai ; and again they 
turned against Moses and made them a golden calf and 
worshipped it after the manner of the Egyptians. Still 
there was no Temple. The Tabernacle was indeed in- 
stituted, and they worshipped in it during their wanderings, 
and brought it with them into the Promised Land. But it 
was only a temporary institution ; and not till the days of 
Solomon, some four centuries and a half after their settlement 
in the Promised Land, was the Temple built. Thus for nearly 
a thousand years Israel had been God's people, and all the 
while she had no Temple ; and when at length the Temple 
was built, God had proclaimed its insufficiency. ( The Most 

1 Stephen's defence is so remarkable, as Blass observes, that it can be nothing 
else than an accurate report. Philip would hear it, and Luke may have had it 
from him at Csesarea twenty-four years later (cf. Ac. xxi. 8). 



THE MARTYRDOM OF STEPHEN 43 

High does not dwell in sanctuaries which hands have made ; 
as the prophet says : 

' The heaven is My throne, la. lxvi. 1 

and the earth My foot-stool : 
What manner of house will ye build for Me ? saith the Lord ; 

or what is the place of My rest ? 
Did not My hand make all these things ? ' 

The Sanhedrists had listened complacently to the Angry in- 
historical narrative, and even the references to the unfaith- 
fulness of their fathers had given them no offence ; but that 
quotation indicated whither the argument was tending, 
and they raised a clamour of angry dissent, oblivious that it 
was the Lord's word that they were reprobating. Their 
unreasoning fury revealed the hopelessness of persuading 
them. It was the same spirit which had animated their 
fathers all down the course of their history. Stephen stood 
unmoved, and when the storm subsided, he told them the 
stern truth. ' " Stiff necked " and " uncircumcised in hearts Ex. xxxiii. 
and ears " ! you are always opposing the Holy Spirit. Your xxvi. 41 ; 
fathers did it, so do you. Which of the prophets did not jx. r ' 2 6/ IO ' 
your fathers persecute ? They killed those who announced Cf - Is - lxiii< 
beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, and now you 
have proved His betrayers and murderers.' 

Instantly the Sanhedrin was in an uproar. Stephen had stoning of 
dealt thus far only with the first article of the indictment, *" 
but he was suffered to proceed no further. The august 
senators forgot their dignity and ' gnashed their teeth at 
him ' like infuriated beasts. Meanwhile he stood with 
upturned face, seeing nothing of their menaces, hearing 
nothing of their clamour ; and a vision of the Unseen broke 
upon him. His surroundings vanished — that circle of angry 
faces and the enclosing walls and roof of the Hall of Hewn 
Stone. 1 ' Look you ! ' he exclaimed, ' I behold the heavens 
wide opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand 
of God' — not sitting on His Judgment-seat but standing Cf :. Lk - 
as though He had started from His Throne to greet His 
Martyr and, according to His word, ' receive him unto Cf - J°- xiv * 

1 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 468. 



44 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Himself.' x This sealed his doom. It seemed to them 

rank blasphemy, and without staying to pronounce sentence 

Cf. Lev. they rushed at him and, that the Holy City might not be 

Dt V xxi! : denied with his impious blood, dragged him through street 

**} * Ki « and gate, and there outside the city-wall executed on him 

Heb. xiii the blasphemer's horrible doom 2 by stoning him to death. 

He died with a prayer on his lips. ' Lord Jesus/ he said 

when the hail of missiles began, ' receive my spirit ' ; and 

then he sank, bruised and bleeding, on his knees. ' Lord,' he 

cried, * lay not this sin to their charge,' and ' fell asleep.' 

And thus he gained that crown of which his name 
Stephen, ' the Crown,' 3 had been an unwitting prophecy. 
He was the leader of ' the noble army of martyrs.' 

1 Cf. CEcum. : tva. del£ri rty avTl\r)\f/ti> rrfy eis airbv. 
* Cf. Lightfoot, Hor. Hebr. on Jo. x. 31. 

8 Cf. Aug. Enarr. in Psalm, lviii. 5 : ' Quod vocabatur accepit. Stephanas 
enim Corona dicitur.' 



TF£ CONVERSION OF SAUL 2f-u£ 

1-21 (xxii. 
4-16, xxvi. 

'Ob the regret, the struggle and the failing ! 9-2°); Gal. 

Oh the days desolate and useless years ! i x 22-25 ;* 

Vows in the night, so fierce and unavailing ! 2 Cor. xi. 

Stings of my shame and passion of my tears ! ' ? 2 ' 33 \ _Ac. 

Frederic W. H. Myers. Gal. i. 18- 

24 ; 2 Cor. 
xii. 2-4. 

The execution of Stephen was a flagrant illegality. Judaea niegaiityof 
was in those days a Roman province ; and while the imperial doo P m. en s 
government suffered the Jews to administer their own cf. Ac. 
religious affairs, in capital cases it reserved to itself the xvm - I2 * l6> 
ultimate decision. The Sanhedrin might pass the death- 
sentence, but its execution lay with the Roman procurator. 
Hence after our Lord had been declared by the High Priest 
guilty of the capital offence of blasphemy, He was not 
forthwith sentenced to the Jewish doom of stoning but 
remitted to the judgment of Pontius Pilate and, after due 
confirmation of the Jewish court's verdict, sentenced to the 
Roman penalty of crucifixion. 1 This is the course which 
should have been followed in the case of Stephen, and his 
summary execution was an open flouting of the procurator's 
authority. Nor could the outrage have been committed with 
impunity had not Pilate during those closing years of his 
disastrous administration (a.d. 25-35) been reduced to 
impotence by his long misgovernment. 3 

The martyrdom of Stephen was the breaking of a pitiless persecu- 
tempest. The purpose of the rulers was nothing less than j 1 ^" 
the extermination of the Church, and they found in Saul a 
ready and efficient instrument. He had borne a conspicuous 
part in the judicial crime. As a member of the Sanhedrin he cf. Ac. 
had recorded his vote against the heretic, and not content x 
therewith he had in the intensity of his zeal so far demeaned 
himself as to attend the victim to the scene of execution, 

1 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 463. » Ibid. pp. 477 ff. 



46 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

He took indeed no active share in the brutal work, leaving 
that to coarser hands. He flung no stone, but when the 
witnesses who had given evidence in court divested themselves 

cr. Dt. in order to exercise their statutory prerogative of beginning 
the bloody business, they laid their cloaks at his feet, and 

cf. Ac. he stood guard over them — an incident which he remembered 

X\ll 20 ^^* ta *«a*» 

in after days with burning shame. *> And the work thus 
Saul's zeal, auspiciously inaugurated was vigorously prosecuted. The 
rulers appointed Saul their commissioner, and he instituted 
an energetic inquisition, invading with his minions the 
homes of the disciples, arresting and imprisoning all who 
would not abjure their Lord, and arraigning them before the 
court of the Sanhedrin. 2 The survivors fled from the city, 
and hid in the fastnesses of Judaea or fled from pursuit across 
the northern frontier into the territory of despised Samaria, 
cf. Ac. viii. 7 ne Apostles alone stood their ground, and it is indeed 
surprising that they, the leaders of the heresy, should have 
been able to defy the storm. The reason doubtless was that 
their miraculous powers had invested them with sanctity 
in the eyes of the populace, and even in the extremity of 
their rage the rulers would shrink from molesting them and 
thus provoking a popular reaction. 
His com- After he had purged the Holy City and her environs of 
Damascus, the heretical pollution Saul's zeal remained unabated. He 
Ac. i x . 1. ' still breathed out threat and slaughter against the disciples 
of the Lord/ Tidings reached him that some of the fugitives 
had found an asylum in the old Syrian capital, 3 the far 
northern city of Damascus ; and he resolved to pursue them 
thither. They were indeed beyond the confines of Palestine, 
but they were not beyond the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin, 
since every Jewish community throughout the Empire was 
subject in matters of religion to the local synagogue, which 

1 Cf . Aug. Serm. ccclxxxii. 4 : ' cum sanctus Stephanus lapidaretur, omnium 
vestimenta servabat, et tanquam manibus omnium lapidabat.' 

2 Ac. xxvi. 1 1 : avroi/s rjvdyKa^ov ^Xaacprifxeiv, ' I tried to compel them to 
blaspheme,' implying that he did not succeed. The process was familiar in after 
days. Cf . Martyr. Polyc. ix : ' When the proconsul insisted and said : " ' Take 
the oath, and I release 3'ou ; revile the Christ," Polycarp answered : " Eighty and 
six years have I been His servant, and He has done me no wrong ; and how can I 
blaspheme my King, who saved me ? *•' ' where XoiSopdv rbv Xpiarov is the Latin 
Ckristo mcdedtcere (cf. Plin. Epist. x. 97). 

' Cf. Ac. xxii. 5 : rods eKelcre 6vras. 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 47 

in turn owed allegiance to the supreme court at Jerusalem. 
So he obtained from Caiaphas the High Priest, as President 
of the Sanhedrin, lettres de cachet to the synagogues of 
Damascus, empowering him to arrest * any that were of the 
Way, 1 whether men or women,' and convey them in bonds 
to Jerusalem for trial and sentence. 

He set forth on his journey attended by a band of the His 
Sanhedrin's officers. His route is uncertain, since two were J ourne ? 
open to him. He might hold northward and, passing 
through Samaria, cross the Jordan by the ford of Bethshean ; 
or he might cross by the southern ford of Bethany near 
Jericho and travel northward through Peraea and Batanaea. 
It was probably the latter route that he adopted, since it 
was the shorter, making the journey about a hundred and 
forty miles ; and if, as the narrative seems to indicate, 2 he 
travelled on foot, it would occupy at the customary rate 
over a week. 

It was a long march, and it afforded the persecutor ample His spirt 
leisure for reflection. In truth his mind was ill at ease, and quietude. 
the very intensity of his hostility to Christianity is an 
evidence thereof. 

' When one so great begins to rage, he 's hunted 
Even to falling/ 3 

A man is never so violent in the assertion of his faith as when 
he feels it slipping from his grasp ; and that was the reason of 
Saul's ' exceeding madness ' against the Church. For years Ac. xxvi. 
he had been conscious of his alienation from God, and had x 
been labouring to attain peace by the Pharisaic method of (1). The 
legal observance. His labour had been in vain, and his phLriL° 
failure had goaded him to ever increased devotion. For 

1 A designation of the Gospel (cf. Ac. xix. g, 23, xxii. 4, xxiv. 14, 22) ; more 
fully ' The Way of the Lord ' or ' The Way of God ' (cf. x\iii. 25, 26). ' An 
appellation of the believers, who were generally so named, perhaps,' fancies 
Chrys.J r ' because they were cutting the way which leads to Heaven.' 

a The mediaeval artists depict him mounted on a caparisoned charger ; but, 
since among the Jews the horse was used only in war, he would ride, if he rode at 
all, on an ass or a camel (cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. 391 f.). However, 
(1) the word Tropetieadai (ix. 3, xxii. 6) suggests that he travelled on foot ; and (2) 
had he been provided with a beast, his attendants would have set him on its back 
Instead of 'leading him by the hand ' (cf. ix. 8, xxii. 11) into Damascus. 

' Shak. Ant. and Chop. iv. i. 7 f. 



ism. 



48 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

long it had never occurred to him that he was on the wrong 
road, but the suspicion had dawned upon him when he came 
into personal contact with Christianity. His first intro- 
duction to the new faith was probably the controversy with 
Stephen in the Hellenistic synagogues at Jerusalem. 1 He 
had then heard from the lips of that masterly exponent the 
evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, and that He had been 
raised from the dead and was living and reigning at God's 
right hand ; and the argument had overpowered him. He 
could not refute it, but he would not accept it ; and he had 
striven to stifle his misgivings and silence the pleadings of the 
Holy Spirit by engaging in a furious crusade against the heresy. 

(2) The Amid the wild tumult the inward voice had been unheard, 
GiSiaSfi. Du t m * ne solitude of his long journey it renewed its im- 
portunities, and he was constrained to calm consideration. 
He would review his past career. He could hardly fail to 
recall the large-hearted tolerance of his gracious teacher, 
the wise Rabbi Gamaliel ; and the memory of that revered 

cf. Ac. master and his serene faith in Eternal Providence would 
Gai.' ? '14- rebuke his frenzied ' zeal for God.' Could it be, he would 
Rom. x. 2. as k himself, that he was indeed ' fighting against God ' ? 
that, in resisting reason and struggling to suppress his mis- 
givings, he was, in the phrase of a Greek proverb which 
perhaps he had heard from those honoured lips, * kicking 
against the goad,' like a rebellious ox in the traces ? 2 

(3) The His chief thought, however, would be of the martyr 
o?stTphen. whose blood he had helped to spill. Stephen's arguments 

would recur to him. He would reconsider them ; and the 
more he considered them, the more inevitable would they 
appear. Could it be after all that Jesus of Nazareth was 
indeed the Messiah, and that the Law had been abrogated 

1 Cf . pp. 40 f . 

a Ac. xxvi. 14. Cf. Pind. Pyth. II. 172 ff. : irorl Kbrpov 84 roi / XaKrifrfiev 
TeXi&ct, / dXurdrjpbs olfios. Msch. Agam. 1602 : vpbs Khrpa pA) XaKrl^e /j.<t) irateas 
^07775. Prom. Vinct. 322. Eur. Bacch. 794; Peliad. (fragm.) : vpbs nivTpa p.i] 
X&KTifc rots Kparovai <rov. Terent. Phortn. 1. ii. 27 f. : 'Nam quae inscitia est/ 
Adversum stimulum calces?' Though so frequent in the classics, the proverb 
occurs nowhere in Jewish literature, and Saul may have heard it from his liberal 
teacher. It is included in the Risen Lord's speech in Ac. xxvi. 14, but it is 
absent from the parallel reports (cf. ix. 5 R.V., xxii. 7), and it is probably an 
addition by the Apostle, defining the thought of his own heart and the true 
significance of the Lord's remonstrance. 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 49 

by ft larger revelation ? This, he could not but confess, 
wouid truly be glad tidings for a soul wearied well-nigh to 
despair in the quest for righteousness by the hard and futile 
way of legal observance. And one fact stood before him 
clear and incontrovertible : not only Stephen but the whole 
multitude of his fellow-believers had found in Jesus the 
peace which Saul had so long craved — a glad, triumphant 
peace which no suffering could shake. And in His name, 
moreover, the Apostles had wrought wonders which had 
astonished Jerusalem and which the Sanhedrin durst not 
dispute. Could it be that the story of the Resurrection was 
true, and the Crucified was actually reigning at God's right 
hand ? Was it indeed His glory which had irradiated the 
martyr's face when he stood before the High Priest and when 
he fell beneath the pelting stones with a prayer to the 
Lord Jesus on his lips ? That spectacle haunted Saul to his Cf. Ac. 
dying day, and more than all else it determined the crisis of xx "' ao# 
his life. ' If,' says St. Augustine, 1 ' Stephen had not so 
prayed, the Church would not have Paul to-day.' 

Such questionings were stirring in Saul's breast during Damascus 
that memorable week as he toiled day after day along the 
dusty highway or lay by night in his tent tossing on his 
restless couch. At length he reached the village of Kochaba 
(Kaukab), some ten miles south-west of Damascus, 2 and the 
fair city opened to his view. She was the ancient Syrian Her 
capital, and she holds the distinction of being the oldest antlt * urt * 
city in the world. There was a Jewish legend that she was 
the home of Adam and Eve after their expulsion from Eden, 
and that the plain of Damascus was the scene of Abel's murder 
by Cain. 8 Her origin belongs to the unrecorded past. She 

1 Serm. ccclxxxii. 1 1 ; ' Nam si martyr Stephanus non sic orasset, Ecclesia 
Paulum hodie non haberet.' 

* This was the scene of Saul's conversion according to tradition in the times of 
the Crusades. A later tradition places it about half a mile south-east of the city, 
where there is now a Christian cemetery. 

' Cf. Hieron. on Ez. xxxviii. 18 : 'Sin autem Damascus interpretatur san- 
guinem bibens, et Hebraeorum vera traditio est campum in quo interfectus est 
Abel a parricida Cain fuisse in Damasco.' Cf. Travels of Sir John Mandevillt, 
xiv ; Shak. King Henry VI (i), I. iii. 39 f. : 

' This be Damascus, be thou cursed Cain, 
To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt." 

The legend originated, as St. Jerome indicates, in the fanciful derivation of the 
D 



Cf. Gen. 

xiv, 15, XV. 
8. 



Her 

beauty. 



Jer. xlix. 
as* 



Her politi- 
cal con- 
nection. 



Cf. a Cor. 
xi. 32, 33- 



50 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

already flourished in the days of Abraham, and a later 
tradition represents his steward, Eliezer of Damascus, as her 
founder. And she has survived the vicissitudes of four 
thousand years, a great city still with a population of a 
quarter of a million when every city of equal antiquity has 
vanished from the face of the earth or remains only in 
broken and buried ruins. 

Damascus owes much to her situation. Lying far inland 
on the margin of the desert, she has escaped the tide of 
invasion which generation after generation has inundated 
Palestine ; and this is the reason of her long continuance. 
And, though so near the desert, she enjoys the richest 
blessings of nature. She occupies the midst of a lovely 
plain, green and fruitful, watered by the river Barada, the 
ancient Abana, and bounded westward by Mount Hermon 
and the long ridge of Anti-Lebanon ; and the climate is 
delightful since the plain is raised some 2300 feet above the 
level of the Mediterranean. The city was the principal 
station of caravans from the East, and her markets were 
thronged with merchants. Her beauty was the admiration 
of the world. A Hebrew prophet styled her ' the city of 
praise, the city of my joy ' ; and to this day the Arabs speak 
of her as ' pleasant Damascus/ ' honourable/ ' holy/ ' blessed 
Damascus/ one of the four terrestrial Paradises. And it is 
told how Mohammed, ere his call to be the prophet of Allah 
while he was still a camel-driver, surveyed Damascus from 
the mountain and would not enter her lest, amid her delights, 
he should forget the glories of Paradise. ' Man/ he said, 
' has but one Paradise, and mine is fixed elsewhere/ 

Formerly the capital of Syria, Damascus passed under the 
dominion of Arabia. Then she was annexed by Pompey 
to the Roman Empire (62-64 B.C.) ; but, with that imperial 
instinct which taught them that an Empire's strength lies 
in the self-government of its component nationalities, the 
Romans recognised the subordinate sovereignty of the 
Arabian king ; and thus in the days of Saul, while Damascus 
belonged to the Roman Empire, she was under the rule of 

name from D" 5 ! and i\p& 'a draught of blood' (sanguinis potus). On Damascus 

ct. Strabo, 755 f . ; G. A. Smith, Hist. Geogr,, xxx ; Wright, Palmyra and 
Zenobia ; Hichens, Holy Zand, II. 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 51 

King Aretas, and his representative or ' ethnarch ' was 
guardian of the city. The population was composed mainly 
of native Syrians, but it included also a considerable colony 
of Jews who had settled there after their wont to share in 
the busy and lucrative traffic. 1 They had their synagogues, 
and it was to these that Saul was commissioned. 

When the city came into view, it was a spectacle to a thunder- 
gladden the eyes and charm the imagination ; yet her s 
beauty made no appeal to Saul. His mental conflict had 
waxed ever keener as the days passed, and now the decisive 
hour had arrived. Could he enter the city and, despite his 
misgivings, prosecute his errand ? His future was hanging 
in the balance, and God interposed and decided the issue. 
Martin Luther has recorded how it fared with himself at the 
supreme crisis of his life. His soul had been stirred by his 
study of the Latin Bible which he had discovered in the 
College Library at Erfurt, and by a sickness which had 
brought him to the gates of death ; and he was travelling 
with his friend Alexis through the Thuringian Forest when 
a terrific storm broke. The thunder rolled and the lightning 
blazed, and a bolt struck his companion dead by his side 
and tore up the earth at his feet. It seemed as though the 
Dies Iycb had arrived, and, ' compassed with terror and 
the agony of death,' he devoted himself to God from that 
hour. 2 And even such was Saul's experience as he approached 
Damascus. 

It was the sultry noontide ; and in that region thunder- a vision of 
storms of exceeding violence are frequent when the hot Lord. lsen 
breath of the desert smites the snow-capped mountain. 
Suddenly a dazzling flash enveloped the travellers, 8 and they 
all fell prostrate. His companions soon recovered from their 
panic and rose to their feet, but Saul lay still on the ground. 
The lightning was for him the Lord's minister and the thunder Cf. Pss. 
the Lord's voice ; and as he lay the Glorified Christ mani- ™ cxiviii! 
fested Himself to him. It was no mere subjective phantasm 8 * 
but an actual vision. Of this he never doubted, and he 
was no irrational enthusiast, no facile dupe of fancy. His 

1 Cf. p. 4. * Epist. 11. 101. 

' It is expressly stated that the blaze was a lightning- flash {iffrpavrf). Cf. ix, 
3 : irepiJi<rTpa\J/cv <p~u>t Ik tov oipavod. xxii. 6 : in tov ovpavov ir^pia^rpaxf/ai $&t 
Ikwov. 



52 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 






. 



subsequent testimony is clear and significant. His apostle- 
ship was challenged in after days by the Judaists on the 
ground that he had never known Jesus or received a com- 
mission from Him ; and therefore, they alleged, he lacked 
the authority of the original Apostles. And what was his 
answer ? He asserted that he had indeed seen the Lord 
and received from Him a direct call to the Apostleship. 
iCor.ix.i. « Am not I an Apostle ? Have not I seen Jesus our Lord ? ■ 
There would have been no cogency in this retort had he not 
been assured that on the road to Damascus he had a veritable 
vision of the Lord, not indeed as He had been in His mortal 
weakness but as He was in His glorified humanity. 
^s And here lies the distinctive quality of his experience. 

body. It was a revelation of the Risen Lord identical with those 
Cf. i Cor. manifestations which He had vouchsafed to His disciples 
* v " 5 * ' during the forty days between His Resurrection and His 
Ac. i. 21. Ascension. 1 He wore the body which He had worn ' all 
the time that He went in and went out among them,' but it 
was transfigured ; it had undergone the self-same trans- 
formation which our mortal bodies shall experience when 
cf. x Cor. they are raised incorruptible, qualified for that Kingdom 
xv - 50. which flesh and blood cannot inherit. It was no longer ' an 
Cf. 1 Cor. earthly body ' but ' a heavenly body,' no longer ' an animal 
Phiulh 5i. body ' but ' a spiritual body/ no longer ' the body of His 
humiliation ' but ' the body of His glory/ This distinction 
is receiving surprising illumination from the investigations of 
physical science. Matter, as it is now known to us, is only 
in the making, and when the process is complete, it will be 
a finer stuff. Its evolution keeps pace with our spiritual 
development ; and when the soul is ushered into the domain 
of the Eternal, ' this muddy vesture of decay ' which ' doth 
grossly close it in/ will experience a corresponding ennoble- 
ment. It will not perish, neither will it be left behind ; it 
will be purified and refined. Matter as it is is only matter 
in the making ; and ' the spiritual body * or, in scientific 
phrase, ' the ethereal body ' is ' the animal body ' as it shall 
become in the course of its further evolution. 
unper- And the ethereal body, adapted as it is to the Kingdom 

physioai y which flesh and blood cannot inherit, is superior to the con- 

x Cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. 521 ff 



sense. 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 53 

dition9 of sense. It is, as appears from the records of our 
Lord's post-resurrection manifestations, invisible to the phy- 
sical eye and inaudible to the physical ear. The physical eye 
beholds a physical body, but spiritual vision is needed for 
the perception of a spiritual body. And hence, when the 
Lord would manifest Himself to the children of men, there 
are two ways whereby He may accomplish His gracious 
purpose. One is that He should submit Himself to their 
carnal limitations and present Himself before them under 
their existent conditions; and He took that way at the Cf.jo.i.14. 
Incarnation. In this case the miracle was wrought on His 
own person. The other way is that the miracle should be 
wrought on them ; that the veil of sense should be lifted 
and their spiritual perceptions unfettered, so that they may 
behold things which eye cannot see and hear things which 
ear cannot hear. And this is the way which He took when 
He manifested Himself to His chosen witnesses during the 
Forty Days, and again when He manifested Himself to Saul 
on the road to Damascus. 

See how this is borne out by the sacred narrative. The seen by 
miracle was wrought upon Saul alone, and thus he alone 
perceived the manifestation. He saw the Lord and heard 
His voice, but his attendants saw nothing and heard nothing 
beyond the physical accompaniments. It was indeed an 
actual manifestation, yet he did not perceive it with his 
physical senses. It was not his eyes that ' saw the Lord ' ; 
for all the while he was prostrate on his face, blinded by the 
flash. And he alone experienced it. His companions 
neither saw the Lord nor heard His voice. They saw the 
blaze of light, but they did not see the Glorious Form ; and Cf. Ac. u. 
they heard a voice, but it was the voice of Saul making reply 7 ' 
to the heavenly question, and they wondered at what 
appeared to them a one-sided conversation. 1 

The Lord's question was a gracious and compassionate The Lord's 
remonstrance. He spoke in Hebrew, Saul's kindly mother- "ranee, 
tongue, with a pleading iteration of his name : ' Shaul, zxvi.14. 
Shaul, why are you persecuting Me ? ' It was a puzzling 4I ' ; L 
inquiry : Saul had never seen Jesus, and he did not recog- ?*• 
nise Him. He might indeed have guessed who the glorious 

1 Cf. Append. II. 



xxii. 



54 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

stranger was, and had He asked : •' Why are you persecuting 
My disciples?' he would have had no doubt. But it 
bewildered him when he was asked : ' Why are yo a perse- 
cuting Me ? ' He did not yet understand the truth which 
he learned in after days, that the Glorified Saviour is so 
truly one with His people, the Head so linked to the members, 

Cf. Mt. that their sufferings are His : ' Inasmuch as you did it 
to one of these My brothers, even these least, you did it 
to Me/ x And so he leaped to the conclusion that his inter- 
locutor was one of the victims of his persecuting zeal. ' Who 
are you, sir ? ' 2 he asked. And the answer came : ' I am 
Jesus, whom you are persecuting/ 

Thebroken The Lord's errand was not to upbraid. He dismissed 
' the past, and claimed the broken persecutor for a high career 
of future service. ' I am Jesus/ He said, ' whom you are 
persecuting. But arise, and enter into the city, and it will 
be told you what you must do/ 8 Therewith the vision 
faded, and Saul lay stunned until his attendants raised him. 
He was in a sorry plight. He had been blinded by the 
lightning, and they had to lead him by the hand into 
Damascus — a far different entry than he had contemplated 
when he set forth from Jerusalem ' breathing out threat and 
slaughter.' It had been arranged that during his stay in 
the city as the Sanhedrin's emissary he should reside in the 
house of a Jew named Judas in Straight Street ; 4 and 
thither they conducted him. 

His vision For three days he lay sightless and oblivious of his 

cus. amaS surroundings. He tasted nothing, and kept praying until a 
vision was vouchsafed him. It may have been a dream, 

Ecci. v. 3. ' coming/ as dreams are wont, ' with a multitude of 

1 Cf . Aug. Sertn. cccxlv. 4 : ' One whom Paul never saw and never touched, 
cries in heaven : "Why are you persecuting Me ? " He does not ask : " Why are 
you persecuting My household, My servants, My saints or brothers?" It was 
none of those things that He said. And what did He say? 'Why are you 
persecuting Me ? " He asks, that is, My members. For these, trampled on earth, 
the Head cried in heaven.' 

* For this use of Kvpie, like domine, cf. Mt. xiii. 27, xxv. 22, 24 ; Jo. xx. 15. 

* In ix. 5, 6 the best authorities omit 'it is hard . . . said unto him.' The 
true reading is ey& el/ju'Iyvovs 8v <xi> 5tc6/c«s. dXXd cLv&ffTrjdi. a\\& suggests a pause 
during which Saul lay mute. 

* The street still remains, running right across the city. Cf. Hichens, The 
Mdy Land, p. 69. 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 55 

business/ * like that which moved the elder Pliny to write 
his history of the German wars, when, as he lay asleep, the 
form of Drusus Nero, who had perished in the midst of his 
victorious career, stood by his couch and prayed him to 
rescue his memory from oblivion. 2 Nevertheless it was a 
divine revelation. There was in Damascus a believer ofcf. xxH. 12 
distinction and repute named Ananias, who ere his con- 
version had been a strict Jew and still remained loyal to the 
ancient ordinances. Apparently Saul had known him in the 
past ; and in his vision he saw Ananias enter his chamber and Ananias. 
lay hands on him and restore his sight. Ananias too had a 
vision, and it seems to have been no mere dream but a 
veritable manifestation of the Risen Lord. He had learned 
from the refugees of Saul's malignant activities in the Holy 
City and his commission to Damascus, and rumours were Cf. ix. 17. 
current of his experience on the way. But these would be 
inexplicable to Ananias, and he was fearfully expecting the 
persecutor's arrival. And thus it surprised him when the 
Lord told him that the latter was lying stricken in the house 
of Judas, and bade him repair thither and restore him, 
silencing his incredulous remonstrance with an intimation 
of the high part which Saul was destined to play. 

Ananias obeyed. He betook himself to the house of His visit to 
Judas, and, being admitted to Saul's chamber, he laid his 
hands on him after the manner of a physician, 3 and addressed 
him in Hebrew as a fellow- Jew. ' Shaul/ he said, and 
added ' brother,' thus claiming him as a fellow-believer, 
' the Lord has commissioned me — Jesus who appeared to 
\*bu on your way hither — that you may recover your sight 
and be filled with the Holy Spirit.' Forthwith Saul's dark- 

1 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 485. Lecky, Map of Life, p. 333 : ' It has 
been noticed that often thoughts and judgments, scattered and entangled in our 
evening hours, seem sifted, clarified, and arranged in sleep ; that problems which 
seemed hopelessly confused when we lay down are at once and easily solved when 
we awake, " as though a reason more perfect than reason had been at work when 
we were in our beds."' In Job xxxiii. 14-30 three ways are specified in which 
God was recognised as speaking to men : (1) by dreams, (2) by sickness, and 
(3) by prophets. 

1 Plin. Epist. iii. 5. 

• Cf. Senec. De Benef. vi. 16 : ' Itaque medico, si nihil amplius quam manum 
tangit et me inter eos quos perambulat poriit, sine ullo affectu facienda vitandaque 
prnecipiens, nihil amplius debeo.' 



56 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



His retire- 
ment to 
Arabia. 



ness, both physical and spiritual, was dispelled. The 
purulent incrustation which had seeled his eyes fell off in 
flakes, and they opened to the light. 1 He rose from his 
couch and was baptised ; and, taking refreshment, was soon 
restored to strength. 
Saul's testi- The first duty which devolved upon him was public 
the n syna- confession of his new allegiance, and he hastened to discharge 
gogues. it. Invested with the authority of the Sanhedrin's com- 
mission, he visited the synagogues and there, instead of 
preaching a crusade against the Church, proclaimed his faith 
in the Lord's Messiahship. 2 It was a startling volte-face, and 
it occasioned amazement. His testimony would in due 
course have resulted inevitably in a large accession to the 
Church and a corresponding exasperation of the Jewish 
authorities, but that issue was meanwhile postponed. His 
conversion was an upheaval of his life, and it was essential 
that he should retire for a season and calmly survey the 
altered conditions and determine his future action. After 
his conversion in a.d. 386 in his three-and-thirtieth year St. 
Augustine resigned his professorship of Rhetoric at Milan 
and repaired to the country-house of his friend Verecundus 
at Cassiacum, where for a season he ' found rest in God from 
the fever of the world.' 3 And even our Blessed Lord on 
receiving His call to enter on His public ministry retired to 
the wilderness of Judaea and passed forty days in solitary 
communion and spiritual conflict. 4 And how much more 
urgent was Saul's need of repose and self-recollection ! He 
remained only a few days at Damascus, and then he quitted 
cf. Gai. i. the city and betook himself to a far distant retreat. It was 
the grim solitude of Mount Sinai in Arabia, 5 where the 

1 awiireo-av , AertSes, and hloyyatv (ix. 1 8, 19) are medical terms (cf. Hobart, 
Med. Lang, of St. Luke, pp. 38 ff.) exemplifying 'the beloved physician's' 
accustomed use of professional language. 

* 6 Tibs rod Qeod (ix. 20), a Messianic title, synonymous with 6 X/>ktt6j 
(ver. 22). Cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. 33, 370. 

* Confess, ix. 2-5. * Cf. The Days of His Flesh, chap. iv. 
1 The Arabian retirement has its place in Ac. ix. between ver. 20 and ver. 2.1. 

It is omitted by the historian probably because it belonged so peculiarly to Saul's 
inner life. The locality is indeterminate. 'Arabia' was properly the Sinaitic 
Peninsula, but at that period it comprehended the region east of the Jordan 
(cf. Eus. Onomast. : 'lopSdvns irorafibs diaipwr rty 'lovtialav rijs 'Apa/Sias), extending 
Indeed 'from Mount Amanus to the Egyptian coast' (Plin. H. N. VI. 32). In 



*7 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 57 

prophet Elijah had met with God in his dark hour ; and none 1 Ki. xix. 
more appropriate could have been chosen. It was there " l8, 
that the Law had been delivered to Moses, and the problem 
which pressed upon Saul was the value of the ancient 
revelation and the attitude which he must thenceforth hold 
to it. In that historic scene, 

' Where all around on mountain, sand, and sky, 
God's chariot-wheels had left distinctest trace/ * 

he thought out the question and attained the conviction 
which he maintained to the last, that the Law was a tern- cf. Gal. »iu 
porary institution, designed not to cure but to discover the I9# 
plague of sin. 

How long his sojourn in Arabia may have continued does His em- 
not appear. Moses was forty days in the Mount with God, fhere ment 
and no less a space would suffice for Saul. It is perhaps ( £ v E jg 
foolish to inquire how he sustained himself all the while, xxxiv. 28. 
but it may be recalled that the desert was peopled by 
nomad tribes roaming far and wide and pitching their brown 
tents where they listed, whence, especially in Mesopotamia, 
they were known as the Scenitse or Tentmen. 2 Tent-making 
was Saul's handicraft, and its exercise would win him a 
ready livelihood among those wanderers, as it did in after 
days when he visited strange cities in the course of his 
missionary journeys. 8 

When his season of retirement was over, he returned to His return 

to Damas* 
this large sense Damascus was in Arabia (cf. Strabo, 755 : ^771/s irwt rdv 'kpafilwv cu . s ^" d 
6pwv t&v v-jrep tt)s Aa/xa<rK7)vrjs. Just. M. Dial, cum Tryph. y p. 305A (Sylburg.) : there. 
Aa/xacncbs 7-775 'A/5/}a/3tK?5s 777s 7/r koX Hariv, el ical vvv irpoffV€v4pvr}Tai T-g *2,vpo<t>oivlicri 
Xeyofxtvri) ; and hence it has been supposed that Saul found a retreat at no great 
distance from the city, in Auranitis {Hauran) or Trachonitis. But &irrjkdov elt 
'A/>a/3t'av, ' I went away into Arabia,' seems to imply a remoter destination ; and it 
is decisive that in Gal. iv. 25 Arabia signifies the Sinaitic Peninsula. Indeed, if 
the midrash (Gal. iv. 22-31) be indeed, as it seems, an echo of Saul's inward 
debate during his retirement, it fixes Mount Sinai as the locality. Chrysostom 
(cf . Theod. Mops. , Theodoret. ) misses the significance of the retiral into Arabia 
by regarding it as a missionary expedition : ' See the ardour of his soul. He was 
eager to occupy the regions which had not yet been tilled but still lay wild. . . . 
Fervent in spirit, he addressed himself to the instruction of men barbarous and 
wild, choosing a life of conflict and heavy toil.' 

1 Keble, Christian Year, Ninth Sunday after Trinity. 

* Strabo, 288, 515, 747 f., 765 ; Plin. H. N. VI. 32. 

8 Cf. Wetstein on Ac. xviii. 3. 



58 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Damascus to resume his testimony. He had thought out 
the problem of the relation between the Law and the Gospel 
and attained to assured conviction, and he entered on an 
active ministry which continued for two full years. 1 His 
main effort was naturally directed to the task of persuading 
the Jews of Damascus by appeal to the prophetic Scriptures 
that Jesus was the Messiah ; 2 and he achieved conspicuous 
and increasing success. He was recognised as the Church's 
protagonist in the city, and his converts formed a distinct 

Jewish school owning him as its master. 3 The Jewish authorities 

hostility. were foftterly resentful, and at length they laid a plot for 
his destruction : so soon was the whilome persecutor men- 
aced with the doom which he had inflicted. They enlisted 
the sympathy of the ethnarch who governed the city under 

Cf. 2 cor. King Aretas ; 4 and he posted guards at the gates to prevent 

1 32 ' 33 ' his egress. Saul, however, was apprised of their intention, 
and his disciples rallied to his defence and effected his 

His escape, deliverance by an ingenious stratagem. The houses on the 
city-rampart had windows overhanging the fosse, and they 
ensconced him in a large basket of woven rope and lowered 
him from a window under cover of darkness. 5 

visit to On making his escape he betook himself to Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem. It wag fafag that he s h ou ld go thither and confess the 

faith which he had trampled under foot. And that was 
doubtless his main errand, but he had another end in view. 
The Holy City was the home of the original Apostles ; and 
since they were the leaders of the Church, Saul desired to 
meet them and show them what the Lord had done for him 
and obtain their benediction upon his future career. There 
was one in particular to whom his heart turned — the 
generous Peter, who had played so heroic and devoted a 

1 Cf. Append. I. 

1 ix. 22 : ffvfi^ifia^v &ti ©8t6j ivriv 6 XpurrSi, quoting Old Testament passages 
and laying them alongside of their fulfilments in the life of our Lord. 

1 Cf. Ac. ix. 25, where the best authorities read ol fj.a$ijrai afa-oO, 'his disciples.' 

*Cf.p. 51. 

8 Cf. Wright, Palmyra and Zenobia, p. 226 : ' As we looked down the walls, 
in which we recognised pieces of the Roman period, we saw houses on the 
ramparts, and windows overhanging the ditch. From such a place was Paul let 
down.' <Tirvpls (<r<pvpls) was a large-sized basket (cf. The Days ef His Fleshy 
pp. 235, 255). In 2 Cor. xi. 33 it is called e&pyAtn), which Suidas defines as 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 59 

part ever since the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit 
had descended on the Church. ' To view Cephas ' was Saul'3 Gal. i. xs, 
ambition, and with this object before him his journey to 
Jerusalem was, as St. Chrysostom aptly observes, like a pious 
pilgrimage. 1 

It was in this spirit that he sought the Holy City. He The 
required of the Apostles neither approval nor instruction, ^ t u / u c s h t> s 
since the Lord had spoken to him and called him to His 
service. But it became him to humble himself before the 
Church which he had so cruelly injured, and on his arrival 
he would have taken his place in her ranks. A difficulty, 
however, emerged. His past clung to him, and his very 
name was a terror to the disciples. It seemed as though 
the door of the Church were closed against him ; but happily 
there was one of her members endowed with courage, Barnabas, 
generosity, and discernment. His proper name was Joseph, Cf. Ac. w. 
and he was a Hellenist, a native of the island of Cyprus, and 36 ' 37 ' 
well born since he had belonged to the priestly caste. Like cf. Coi. iv. 
his kinswoman Mary, the mother of John Mark, he had been *g ; £*• 
richly endowed with worldly goods. He had owned land 
in his native island, but he had devoted it to the common 
good. Nor was this generosity his sole title to the Church's 
esteem. It appears that he was a person of distinguished 
presence, 2 and it is a testimony to his intellectual qualities 
that he was credited in after days with the authorship not 
only of the uncanonical epistle which goes by his name 
but with that noble work, the anonymous Epistle to the 
Hebrews. 3 Withal he was distinguished by a winsome 
graciousness which had earned for him in the Church the 
designation of Barnabas. It is uncertain what precisely 
this name signifies, whether ' the son of consolation ' or 
1 the son of exhortation,' but the quality which it betokened 
appears when it is remembered that the word variously 

1 Gal. i. 18 : Urrop^crai Kri<pS.v, K??4>aj is Aramaic of lUrpos (cf. Jo. i. 42). 
IffTopeiv was used of going to view some great sight, a celebrated place or 
personage. Cf. Plut. Pomp. xl. I ; Lucull. ii. 6 ; Cic. ii. 2. Chrys. : ovk etircv 
'Mew H4rpov ' dXX' ' J<rro/>?j<rai Tlirpov^ Strep ol raj fxeyd\a$ wdXeis xal \a/j,Tpd.t 
KaTafiavOdvovrei Xtfyowtr. 

* The people of Lystra took him for Zeus, the King of the Gods (cf . Ac. xiv. 1 1 9 
It), ip.ol doKei, says Chrysostom, koX dx6 rrjs 6ipe<ds d^tOTrpeirTjs elvat 6 Bapv&fias, 

1 Cf . Tert. Dc Fudic. 20. 



60 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

rendered ' consolation ' and ' exhortation ' is akin to our 
Lord's designation of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, ' the 
Comforter ' or rather ' the Advocate.' * And St. Chrysostom 
has truly denned his disposition by the epithets ' sweetly 
reasonable, gentle, kindly, accessible.' 2 
His Barnabas came to Saul's aid. With characteristic kind- 

generous i mess he took him by the hand and conducted him to the 

champion- J 

ship. Apostles. As it chanced, there were only two of the latter 
in Jerusalem at that time, and these were Peter and James, 
the Lord's brother, who, though not one of the original 
Twelve, yet by reason of his sacred kinship and his lofty 
character enjoyed apostolic prestige. 3 Their colleagues were 
doubtless absent on circuits among the outlying churches 
of Judaea, 4 but those two sufficed : their reception of Saul 
would secure his entree. Barnabas introduced him and told 
his story, arguing that it became them to receive one who 
had seen the Lord and so fearlessly confessed Him at 
Damascus. 
Saul's re- They accorded him a ready welcome, and Peter took him 
by P the n *° ^ s nome an d entertained him during his sojourn in the 
Apostles. Holy City. 5 His errand thither was accomplished once he 
had been received and had seen the chief * pillar ' of the 
Church, but he protracted his stay for a fortnight and availed 
himself of the opportunities which each day brought. His 

1 It is probable (cf . Deissmann, Bible Studies, pp. 309 f . ) that ' Barnabas ' 
was originally an ancient Semitic name, 'son of Nebo,' the Bab3'lonian deity 
(cf. Is. xlvi. 1), and the Jews redeemed it from paganism by explaining it as 
either (1) PI&033 12 'son of prophecy' or 'exhortation' (cf. Ac. xiii. 1, where 

t : -f 

Barnabas is called ' a prophet ') or (2) KITI3 "13 ' son of consolation.' Exhortation 

rr; - ' 

and consolation were both prophetic functions (cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 3), but the latter 
belonged more especially to Barnabas. He was at all events less eloquent than 
Paul (cf. Ac. xiv. 12). 

* In Act. Apost. Horn. XXI : iirteiKfy ns ical ^fiepos &v$punros Ijv . . . xpyffrbt 
1jp <r<p6$pa Kal €inrp6<Ti.T0S. 

* Gal. i. 19 ; cf. I Cor. xv. 7. The title 'Apostle' was somewhat largely 
employed, being bestowed on others besides the original Twelve ; e.g. , Barnabas 
(Ac. xiv. 4, 14 ; 1 Cor. ix. 5, 6), Silvanus (1 Th. ii. 6). There was in fact 
no rigid distinction between 'an apostle' and 'an apostolic man.' Thus Clem. 
Alex, speaks now of ' the Apostle Barnabas ' {Strom. II. vi. 31, vii. 35) and again of 
'the apostolic Barnabas' (11. xx. 116). 

* Cf. Peter's expedition (Ac. ix. 32 ff.). 

* Gal. i. 18 : iTrijxwa vpbi atr6v. Cf. Ac. xxviii. 14 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 7. 



Cf. Gal. ii 
9 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 61 

reception by the Apostles had dispelled the suspicions and 

fears of the disciples, and he moved freely among them. 

Nor was he content with their fellowship. His desire was 

to make atonement for the past by confessing the Lord where 

he had blasphemed His name ; and this he did in a courageous His testi- 

and effective fashion. He visited the Hellenistic synagogues HelHstic 

where he had disputed with Stephen, and resumed the con- s y na - 

r r gogues. 

troversy, espousing the cause which he had formerly op- 
posed. He was encountered with the weapons which he had Jewish 

violence 

himself employed. Worsted in argument, his opponents 
resorted to ' the syllogism of violence.' * They plotted his 
destruction, and he would have perished had he not been 
smuggled out of the city under cover of darkness, 2 and con- Flight to 
veyed to Csesarea, whence he took ship and sailed to Tarsus. 3 arsus * 

Tarsus was his home, yet it was inevitable that he should Domestic 
be ill received by his former associates, his kinsfolk, and ment? ge ~ 
especially his father, that stern old Pharisee. Quarter of 
a century later, in writing from his prison at Rome to the 
churches in the Province of Asia, he included among his 
practical counsels a poignant exhortation. 'Fathers/ heEph.vi.4; 
pleads, ' never anger your children, but nurture them in the Co1 " ll! " 3I * 
Lord's instruction and admonition.' ' Fathers, never irritate 
your children, lest they be discouraged.' There is here a 
quivering note of personal emotion, and it seems as though 
the heart of the aged captive had been reverting to the past 
and recalling the loveless years of his own childhood. Nur- 
tured in the austere atmosphere of traditional orthodoxy, 
he had experienced scant tenderness and much severity, and 
had known that ' plague of youth, a broken spirit.' * And 
now on his return home he would seem in the eyes of his 
father a traitor to the ancestral faith, and would be greeted 
with a storm of reproaches. It would be a painful encounter 
— on the one side unmeasured reprobation, and on the other 
unavailing remonstrance passing into indignant recrimina- 
tion. It was a desecrating scene. It issued in irremediable 

1 Chrys. on Ac. ix. 23 : itrl top texvpov cvWoyicrfibv ipxovrai ird\iv ol 'Iovdeuot. 

2 In Ac. ix. 30 some authorities read els Katcdpeiav did vvktSs. 

* Karriyayov , * brought him down to the coast ' ; i^anio-TeiXav, ' sent him away 
out of port.' 

* Bengel on Col. in. 21 : ' dSvfda, fracius animus, pestis juventutii.' 



62 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Ministry 
in S) r ria- 
Cilicia. 

Cf. Gal. i. 
21-24. 



Spiritual 
develop- 
ment. 
2 Cor. xii. 
3-4. 



estrangement, and the bitter memory remained with him to 
the last. 

Nevertheless he did not flinch. An outcast from home 
and kindred, he devoted himself for the next nine years * to 
the service of the Gospel in his native city and the surround- 
ing Province of Syria-Cilicia ; and he achieved no small 
success. The fame of his ministry travelled as far as the 
Province of Judaea, and excited wonder and gladness in the 
churches there. He was personally unknown to them, but 
they had heard of his malign activities in the Sacred Capital 
a few years previously, and on learning that the persecutor 
was doing the work of an evangelist they praised God for 
so amazing a transformation. 

Nor was this his sole employment. It was during that 
period that he was vouchsafed those two visions which he 
recounts in a letter to the church at Corinth in the year 55, 
one a discovery of the righteousness of God and the other a 
revelation of the glory of the Risen Saviour. It thus appears 
that his protracted sojourn in his native province was a 
season not merely of evangelical activity but of inward 
development, and in either aspect it was a precious discipline 
for the work which awaited him in the providence of God. 



1 Cf. Append. L 



BOOK II 

PAUL THE APOSTLE OF JESUS CHRIST 



1 Paule doctor egregie, 
Tuba clangens ecclesiae, 
Nubes volans ac tonitrum, 
Per amplum mundi circulum. 

Nobis potenter intona 
Ruraque cordis irriga, 
Coelestis imbre gratiae 
Mentes virescant aridae.* 

Latin Hymn, 



HIS CALL TO THE APOSTLESHIP OF Ac. *. J9 - 
THE GENTILES fiL?!"' 

xxii. 17-21. 

It is an ancient saying which has passed into a proverb, that The dis- 
' the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church ' ; * g£ qJJ^ 
and Saul's conversion was not the sole harvest which sprang and the 
from the blood of Stephen. The dispersion of the Church the Faith. 
issued in the diffusion of the Faith, since the fugitives played 
the part of missionaries, proclaiming the glad tidings of 
Christ wherever they went. Damascus was not the only 
heathen city where they found an asylum. A little company, 
mainly Hellenists, passed the northern frontier into Phoenicia, 
and there doubtless they would visit the cities of Tyre and 
Sidon and preach in the synagogues ; but they did not stay 
in Phoenicia. They crossed over to the island of Cyprus, 
and after preaching to the Jews there they returned to the 
mainland and settled at Antioch. 

Now a poor Turkish town of six thousand inhabitants, The city of 
Antioch was in those days a splendid city. She was the Antl0ch - 
metropolis of Syria, ranking after Rome and Alexandria as 
the third city of the Roman Empire. 2 Damascus was the 
Arabian metropolis of Syria, but when the Greeks occupied The Greek 
the country, they desired a capital nearer to the sea for the s y ?ia al ° f 
facilitation of their commerce ; and Seleucus Nicator chose 
a site on the river Orontes fifteen miles from its mouth. 3 
The river was navigable, and the passage up the winding 
stream was only one day's sail, 4 while the port of Seleuceia 
five miles north of its embouchure opened to the city a still 
easier access to the sea. 

1 Tert. Apol. 50 : ' Plures efficimur quoties metimur a vobis : semen est sanguis 
Christianorum.' 

8 Jos. Dg Bell. Jud. III. ii. 4. The chief ancient authorities on Antioch ar« 
Strabo, 749 ff. ; Julian, Misopogon ; Chrysostom, Homilies to the People of Antioch. 
Cf . Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chaps, xxiii, xxvi ; Renan, Les Apotres, xii. 

* Jos. Contra Apion. 11. 4 ; Strabo, 749. * Strabo, 751. 

E « 



66 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Herpopu- Her population in the days when St. Chrysostom was 
thrilling her with his matchless eloquence, numbered 
2©o,ooo, 1 of whom half were Christians ; 2 and it comprised 
four elements. The native Syrians were the primary 
element. Then there were the invading Greeks. There w r as 
also a large colony of Jews, attracted thither at the foundation 
of the city by the privilege of ' equal citizenship ' which 
Seleucus granted to that race of merchants. 3 Moreover, 
Pompey had constituted Antioch a free city, the capital of 
the Province of Syria and the seat of the imperial Legate ; 4 
and thus there was a Roman element, mainly official, in the 
population. 

Her learn- She enjoyed, according to Cicero, 5 a high reputation for 
learning and culture ; and this was more than maintained in 
Christian days when Antioch was the centre of a distinguished 
school of historical exegesis. Her fair fame, however, was 
tarnished by another and less honourable reputation. The 

Herturbu- Antiochenes were characterised by that turbulent disposition 

Hcentious- which seems inevitable wherever there is a mixture of races ; 
and they were also notorious for their licentiousness. ' The 
warmth of the climate/ says Gibbon, ' disposed the natives 
to the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and 
opulence ; and the livety licentiousness of the Greeks was 
blended with the hereditary softness of the Syrians.' Among 
the uplands five miles from the city lay 

' that sweet grove 
Of Daphne by Orontes,' 

with its umbrageous laurels and cypresses and its gushing 
fountains, enclosing an inviolate precinct sacred to Apollo 
and Artemis and giving the city her distinctive title of 
' Antioch by Daphne ' 6 — a needful distinction inasmuch as 
there were at least four other Antiochs in Syria, besides 

1 Chrys. Horn, xlii, In S. Ignat. Martyr. 
8 Chrys. In Matt. Horn, lxxxvi, ad fin. 

* Jos. Ant. xii. iii. i. 
4 Plut. Pomp, xxxixf. ; Plin. Nat. Hist. v. 13, 

* Pro Arch. Poet. iii. Philostratus, however, says ( Vit. Apoll. Tyan. ill. 58) 
that Antioch had no zeal for letters. In any case her enduring literary fame is 
Christian. 



ness. 



CALLTO APOSTLESHIP OF GENTILES 67 

Antioch in Pisidia and Antioch on the Maeander. The ritual 
of the grove was a consecration of shame. ' The vigorous 
youth/ says Gibbon again, ' pursued, like Apollo, the object 
of his desires ; and the blushing maid was warned, by the 
fate of Daphne, to shun the folly of unreasonable coyness.' 
' The morals of Daphne ' were proverbial ; and so enervating 
was the abandon that Avidius Cassius, the hardy general of 
Marcus Aurelius, whose tragic rebellion served only to 
illustrate the magnanimity of the philosophic Emperor, 
made it a penal offence for a soldier to visit the place. The 
corruption of Antioch tainted the whole world, and the 
Roman satirist deplores the flood of pollution which the 
Orontes poured into the Tiber. 1 

The Antiochenes were further remarkable for a ready Antiochene 
wit which was apt to degenerate into scurrility, and which scurn 
manifested itself particularly in an unamiable trick of coining 
nicknames. 2 It is related that, when the Emperor Julian 
the Apostate visited the city in the course of his march to 
the East, he angered them by injudicious interference with 
their market, and they avenged themselves by shouting 
abuse after him in the streets. The long beard which he 
wore in emulation of his revered philosophers, was an especial 
object of their ridicule. They termed him ' the Goat/ and 
exhorted him to ' cut it off and weave it into ropes ' ; and 
they styled him also ' the Butcher ' because he was continu- 
ally sacrificing oxen at the altars of his heathen deities. 

This unamiable propensity of the Antiochenes has con- The nick- 
f erred one lasting benefit. ' The disciples were called ?chHs- 
Christians first in Antioch.' The name was originally no tian/ 
title of honour ; it was a nickname, a derisive epithet where- °* X1, 
with the followers of Christ were branded by the mocking 
Antiochenes. 8 And its composition betrays its origin. A 

1 Juv. III. 62. 

* Cf. Julian, Misopogon, 338 ff. ; Philostr. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. ill. 58 ; Socr. 
Eccl. Hist. in. 17. Wetstein on Acts xi. 26. 

8 The evidence is twofold : ( 1 ) The name occurs only in two other passages in 
the New Testament (Ac. xxvi. 28 ; 1 Pet. iv. 16), and in each it is plainly a term 
of contempt. (2) xpT}\xa.rli;<-iv (Ac. xi. 26) means not merely ' to be named ' but 
'to be nicknamed.' It signified properly to get a name from one's employment 
(xpvfia), one's occupation or conduct. Cf. Rom. vii. 3 : a woman /ioixaXt$ 
Xpwarlo-ei when she commits fiotxda. Erasmus : ' Videtur autem inde dicta vox, 
quod cognomen ex officio quo quis fungitur addi solet. Veluti publicani dicuntur, 



68 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

literary school or a political party received a designation 
from the leader's name. Thus, the imitators of Cicero were 
styled ' Ciceronians ' ; the partisans of Pompey were styled 
' Pompeians ' ; the attendants of Caesar, the slaves of the 
imperial palace, were styled ' Caesarians ' ; and later the 
followers of the heresiarchs Sabellius and Arius were styled 
' Sabellians ' and ' Arians.' And in like manner, by a 
felicitous stroke of Antiochene wit, the followers of Christ, 
that pretender to the throne of Israel who had been crucified 
under Pontius Pilate, were mockingly designated ' Christians.' 
a felicitous xh e nickname was caught up and was carried abroad. 

appella- ° * 

tion. It became the general designation of the despised sect of 

Judaism, and as early as the year 64 it was in vogue among 
the populace of the imperial capital. 1 It was, however, 
still a contumelious epithet, and the persecuted folk con- 
tinued meanwhile to call themselves by their old designations 
— ' the disciples,' ' the believers,' ' the brethren/ ' the 
saints,' ' the elect ' ; but ere long it was transfigured by 
their virtues in the world's estimation, and by the close of 
the first century they appropriated it and wore it proudly.- 2 
It was indeed a noble name, nor could a more felicitous 
appellation have been devised. It blends the three great 
languages of the ancient world, since ' Christ ' is the Greek 
rendering of the Hebrew ' Messiah,' and the termination is 

jo. xix 20. Latin. 3 And thus, like the inscription, Jesus of Nazareth 
the King of the Jews, which Pilate put over the cross, 
in Hebrew and Greek and Latin, the name ' Christian ' 
enshrines the supreme glory of the Gospel and proclaims the 
universality of its grace. ' Jesting Pilate ' and the mocking 
Antiochenes were unwitting prophets of the Lord. 

quod publica vectigalia colligunt, ita Christiani, quod Christum profiterentur.' 
The Jewish designations of the despised sect were 'the Nazarenes' and 'the 
Galileans.' 

1 Cf. Tac. Ann. xv. 44: 'quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos 
appellabat' 

8 Both Xpi<rTtav6s and Xpio-napicrfids are frequent in the epistles of Ignatius. 
Cf . ad Magn. iv. : irpixov kcrlv yd) ybvov nakeiffdai X.pt(TTi,avoi>$ d\\a ml elvat. 
Lightfoot, Apost. Fath. 11. i. pp. 415 ff. 

8 This does not prove that the name must have originated at Rome and is 
unhistorically assigned to Antioch as ' the first Gentile dity in which Christians 
existed ' (Baur). Such Latin forms were naturalised in the East. Cf. 'EpwSiavol, 
'kpeiavol, 2ape\\iavoL 



CALL TO APOS TLESHIP OF GENTILES 69 

The bestowal of a name, however, was not the only Gentii* 
service which Antioch rendered to Christianity. She was Jo* ng ** 
the scene of a momentous innovation which determined the 
future of the Faith. Of those Hellenists who after their 
extensive wandering settled in the city, some were Cypriotes, 
and they shared the generosity of their countryman Barnabas ; 
while others were Cyrenians, and they had doubtless heard 
the arguments of Stephen in their synagogue at Jerusalem x 
and caught his spirit. They were thus men of wide sym- 
pathies and large ideals. They were Jews, and in the 
course of their travels through Phoenicia and Cyprus they 
had addressed themselves exclusively to their co-religionists ; 
but after their settlement at Antioch they took to preaching 
also to the Gentiles. 2 Their appeal proved effective. They 
won numerous converts among the heathen populace ; and 
these, strangers as they were to the Jewish Law and its 
ceremonial rites, were received into the communion of the 
Church. 

It was a novel development, and when a report of it Delegation 
reached Jerusalem, it occasioned no small questioning in £ as from" 
the Church. It was decided to despatch a delegate to inquire Jerusalem 
into it, and Barnabas was appointed. It was a happy choice ; 
for the occasion demanded a man of large sympathy, discern- 
ment of God's purpose, and courage to forsake tradition and 
enter at the divine call on an untrodden path. And such a 
man was Barnabas — ' a good man and full of the Holy 
Spirit and of faith/ 

He came to Antioch, and he immediately recognised the His 
Lord's hand in the new movement. It was a singular mani- 0? th° va 

innovation. 

1 Cf. p. 40. 

* Ac. xi. 20 : irpbs robs "EWrjvas. Though the preponderance of MS. authority 
supports 'E\\r)vi(rT&$ (cf. p. 5), the true reading is indubitably "EXX^as. 
(1) There would have been nothing novel in preaching to Hellenists ; and in fact 
all the Jewish residents at Antioch were Hellenists. (2) There is no antithesis 
between 'IovScuol and'EXXT/wcrraJ. The ''EWrjvurTaL were 'lovdcuoi, and the anti- 
thesis of 'EWrjvKTTrjs is 'E/S/hhos (cf. Ac. vi. 1). (3) "EXX^vas is further attested 
by evayye\t,£6?j.evoi rbv Kvpiov 'Irjaovv. Preaching to Gentiles, they ' told the glad 
tidings of the Lord Jesus ' ; had they been preaching to Jews, whether Hebrews 
or Hellenists, they would have ' proclaimed and proved from the Scriptures that 
Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah' (cf. ix. 20, 22). It is significant that, 
while reading rods 'EXX^ytcrrds, Chrys. assumes that it is equivalent to ro^t 
"FjWrjyas. 



7o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



His enlist- 
merit of 
Saul. 



Saul's 
' bodily 
presence.' 

2 Cor. x. 
10. 



Cf. Ac. 
xiii. 9, xiv. 
9, xxiii. i. 



festation of grace, and he not merely approved it but lent 
it his best aid. ' He exhorted them all that with purpose 
of heart they should abide by the Lord/ He possessed 
indeed, as his name expresses, the gift of exhortation ; but 
he recognised that more was needed. He would fain have 
borne an active part in the winning of fresh converts, and 
since he lacked this aptitude, he considered how he might 
procure effective reinforcement ; and his thoughts turned to 
Saul. He recalled that memorable fortnight in Jerusalem 
and the power of the converted persecutor's testimony. Of 
late, moreover, and especially since his coming to Antioch 
he had been hearing reports of Saul's evangelical activities 
in the Province of Syria-Cilicia. Where could a better 
helper be found ? He knew not where in the wide province 
he might be prosecuting his labours, but he took ship for 
Tarsus and soon discovered him and brought him to Antioch. 
It was the summer of the year 45 when Saul appeared on 
the scene, 1 and in his outward aspect there w T as little sugges- 
tion of the distinguished part which he would play. Un- 
chivalrous adversaries in after days sneered at ' the weakness 
of his bodily presence ' ; and tradition has preserved a graphic 
portraiture which is so unflattering that it can hardly be a 
mere imagination, since the tendency of later generations was 
rather to idealise the Apostles. It depicts him as ' little in 
size, bald-headed, bow-legged, well-knit, with contracted 
brow, somewhat large-nosed.' 2 The phrase ' with contracted 
brow ' seems to denote a short-sighted person's manner of 
pursing his eyes and wrinkling his forehead ; 3 and there 
is perhaps an evidence that Saul laboured under this infirmity 
in his habit of ' fastening his eyes ' on one whom he addressed. 4 



1 Cf. Append. I. 

* Act. Paul, et Thecl. 3 : ttSev hk rbv TJavhov epxbpevov, AvSpa fiucpbv t<£ p&yidei, 
\j/i\by rrj KecpaK'p, 6,ynv\ov reus KP-q/xatt, eietcriKby, <r6vo<ppvv, fxucpws iirtppivov, 
X&piTos irXrjprj. ttot£ pJkv yap eQalveTo ti$ Avdpioiros, irork Hk ayyiXov vpoaioirov 
$X ev ' Cf. Pseudo-Lucian, Philopat. 12 : TakiXcuos, avaKe^aXavrlai, ivippivos, is 
rpirov ovpavbv aepofiaTTjiras nal to. /cdXXicra iKjUffxaOrjKuts. 

3 <r6vo<ppvi signified also ' with meeting eyebrows,' jututis superciliis — a mark 
of beauty (cf. Theocr. vni. 75 : avvo<ppvs Kopa); but this meaning is inadmissible 
here. 

* drev^etj/, one of Luke's medical terms (cf. Hobart, Med. Lang, of St. Luke, 
p. 76), occurring twice in his Gospel and ten times in Acts, and nowhere else in 
N. T. except 2 Cor. iii. 7, 13, where it denotes a strained gaze. 



CALLTO APOSTLESHIP OF GENTILES 71 

Possibly it was induced by the blinding flash on the road to 
Damascus. It is, however, noteworthy that, uncouth as it 
represents him, the tradition imputes to him no other bodily 
weakness. On the contrary, it describes him as ' well-knit ' ; 
and so he must have been, else he could not have sustained 
the fatigue of his extensive travel and continual toil in after 
years. And though thus insignificant in the eyes of the 
world, he ranks with its greatest. ' Three cubits in stature, 
he touched the sky ' ; 1 and discerning souls perceived his 
spiritual grandeur. And so the tradition adds that he 
was ' full of grace ; for sometimes he showed like a man, 
but sometimes he had the face of an angel.' 

He was well equipped for his task when he came to His suc- 
Antioch. Being forty-five years of age, he was in the f ull ^Sfsiy at 
vigour of mature manhood ; his mind, so rich in natural Antioch. 
endowments, had been disciplined and furnished by education 
and study ; and his soul had been quickened and elevated 
by singular experiences of heavenly grace. Moreover, 
during the last nine years he had been doing the work of an 
evangelist in Tarsus and its environs, and thus he was 
practised in the art of commending the Gospel and winning 
men for Christ. It does not appear that he had ever visited 
Antioch, but the fame of his preaching in the province must 
have travelled thither, and it would excite lively expectation. 
For a year he prosecuted his labours among the teeming 
populace, and they were crowned with abundant success. 

Meanwhile, however, there had been trouble at Jerusalem, persecu- 
Antioch's season of gracious visitation was a time of tribula- V^Siem 
tion for the Church in the Holy City. Herod Agrippa 1, 
King of Judaea (a.d. 37-44) by consent of Imperial Rome, 
was a gentle and kindly prince, 2 yet he had assumed the role 
of persecutor. His policy was to humour his Jewish sub- 
jects, and he addicted himself from the outset of his reign 
to a scrupulous observance of their religion. ' It was his 
pleasure,' says the Jewish historian, ' to reside constantly 
at Jerusalem, and he purely observed the national customs, 
He lived an undefiled life, nor did a day ever pass with him 

1 Orat. Encom. (ascribed to Chrys.) : IlaGXof . . . 6rplr^x vi &vQpMQi ko.1 t&p 
o$pavu>v airrofievos. 

8 Jos. Ant. xix. vii. 3. 



72 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

lacking the legal sacrifice.' His reign was the golden age of 

Ac. xii. 3. Pharisaism, and it is no wonder that to ' please the Jews ' 

he should have attacked the Church. He executed the 

Apostle James, the son of Zebedee and brother of John, 

and cast Peter into prison. 

Fugitive Again the Church was dispersed, and a band of fugitives 

AnSchf at * °k refuge at Antioch. They were remarkable personages. 

They were Prophets, successors of those heroic preachers of 

old who had been inspired by the Spirit of God to read His 

1 Mac iv. purposes and declare His will. The gift of prophecy had 

xfv 41 2? ' cease d m later days. Already in the time of the Maccabees 

cf. Ps. there was no prophet in Israel. Inspiration was lacking, 

and the prophet's place was supplied by the scribe, the 

conservator of a dead tradition. With the advent of the 

Mt. xi. 9- Gospel the lost gift was restored. John the Baptist was a 

prophet of the ancient order ; and this is the secret of his 

mighty power. For centuries the people had been yearning 

for a living voice, proclaiming with authority the Word of 

the Living God ; and when at length they heard it, they 

recognised and welcomed it. And the gift remained after 

Ac. ii. 17, the Lord's departure. It was confirmed on the Day of 

Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured forth ; and it 

continued for generations. In apostolic days it was held in 

1 Cor. xii. high honour, and the Prophets ranked next to the Apostles 

in the Church's esteem. 
Famine It was probably toward the close of the year 44 when 

byAgabus. * na t company of prophets appeared at Antioch. They settled 
there and aided in the work of evangelisation ; and presently 
one of their number, named Agabus, publicly announced the 
imminence of a widespread famine. It was no groundless 
alarm. It is recorded that during the reign of Claudius 
(a. d. 41-54) the Empire was afflicted with 'incessant dearths.' 1 
Shortly after his accession there had been a famine at Rome, 
betokening scarcity in the countries whence her supplies were 
drawn. 2 Greece suffered in the eighth or ninth year of his 
reign ; 3 and in the eleventh Rome was again visited, and 
her distress was aggravated by shocks of earthquake and 
popular tumult. 4 

1 Suet. Claud, 18. ■ Dio Cassius, lx. II. Cf. Lewin, Fast. Sac. 1639. 

• Eus. Chron. Cf. Lewin, 1735. * Tac. Ann. xii. 43. 






CALL TO APOSTLESHIP OF GENTILES 73 

It was likely that the wandering calamity would alight Fuifiimwt 
nearer home, and probably about the beginning of the dicti«n Pr ** 
year 45, when the prospects of the harvest in the month of 
March were looking dark, the prophet perceived and an- 
nounced its approach. His prediction was presently ful- 
filled. Judaea was ravaged by a sore dearth during the 
years 45 and 46. * The distress of the Jews was alleviated by 
the munificent generosity of a noble proselyte, Helena 
Queen of Abdiene, who had visited the Holy City, probably 
at the Feast of the Passover, to worship and present thank- 
offerings in the Temple, and was residing in her palace on 
the Acra 2 when the trouble befell. She despatched some of 
her officers in hot haste to Alexandria for a supply of corn and 
others to Cyprus for a cargo of dried figs, and on the arrival 
of those welcome succours dispensed them among the 
starving populace. 3 

There was no beneficent princess among the Christians in Antiochene 
Jerusalem ; nevertheless they did not go unrelieved. The Jerusalem* 
prophecy of Agabus had apprised the Antiochenes of the 
impending calamity ; and, though the fertility of their 
country secured them from personal privation, they were 
concerned for their co-religionists in the Holy City, and cf. Gal. ii. 
when Saul appeared among them in the course of the summer, IO * 
he directed their sympathy into a practical channel. His 
heart was tender toward ' the poor saints ' at Jerusalem, 
inasmuch as some of them would be the widows and orphans 
of his victims in the first persecution ; and he engaged the 
good offices of the Antiochenes on their behalf. A relief 
fund was organised. They would doubtless follow the 
method which subsequently prevailed, contributing each 1 cor. xvi. 
Lord's Day according to their ability ; and in course of *■ a * 
time the offerings accumulated until, when the famine 
reached its height on the failure of the harvest in the year 46, 
there was a sufficient store. And then they purchased 
supplies and despatched these to Jerusalem. 

Barnabas and Saul were deputed to conduct the transport Conducted 
and present the bounty. Their retinue included a young bL aS*" 

Saul. 

1 Cf. Append. I. 

1 Cf. Jos. De Bell. Jud. v. vi. i ; vi. vi. 3. 

8 Jos. Ant. xx. ii. 5, v. 2 ; cf. in. xv. 3. 



74 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Titus asso- Gentile named Titus who was destined to play a meritorious 
tbem dwlth P ar * m a ^ er days. For a reason which will emerge in due 
course, nothing is recorded of his antecedents, but this 
Cf.Tit.i.4. much is certain, that he was a convert of Saul; and it 
appears also that he was an Antiochene, inasmuch as he 
remained uncircumcised, and it was at Antioch that the 
epoch-making innovation of preaching to the Gentiles and 
receiving them on the sole ground of faith in Christ first 
originated. Ere his coming thither Saul had preached in the 
synagogues and his converts had all been Jews. Evidently 
Titus had already evinced his worth and won the confidence 
of Saul ; for it was the latter who attached him to the 
expedition. Nor is his motive obscure. The Antiochene 
innovation was resented in the Pharisaic section of the 
Church at Jerusalem ; and he would feel that if its legitimacy 
were challenged, no more effective defence could be offered 
than the presentation of a believing Gentile who, though 
uncircumcised, displayed by his gracious endowments an 
incontrovertible evidence of his acceptance with God. 
Conference And so it came to pass. It was the summer of 46 when 
saiem. the delegates appeared in the Holy City, and they did not 
merely deliver the bounty and hasten back to Antioch. 
They remained in Jerusalem and aided in the distribution. 1 
Nor was this their sole employment. Saul was solicitous for 
the future. He recognised how momentous was the departure 
from Jewish sentiment involved in his Gospel of salvation 
by simple faith and its repudiation of the continued obliga- 
GaL ii. a. tion of the Law ; and, eager to preclude subsequent con- 
troversy and embitterment, he held a private conference 
with the leaders of the Church and submitted his views to 
them. A heated discussion ensued. There were several 
cf. Gai. ii. members of the conference who belonged to the extreme 
4 " party of the legalists and who, it appears, eventually reverted 

to Judaism ; and they condemned the Antiochene innova- 
judaistic tion. They affirmed the permanent obligation of the 
that Titus Mosaic Law, and insisted that Titus should forthwith be 
dle C <i cum " circumcised. It seems that there was a general disposi- 

1 Cf. Ac. xi. 29 {els SiaKoviav) and xii. 25 (irXypuxrcLvres rrjv StaKovLav) with 
vi. 1 {ip t-q Siatcovlq, rrj Kadijfiepivy). Barnabas and Saul assisted in 'the daily 
ministration,' 'the service of tables.' TrX^pwaavres implies a protracted stay. 



CALL TO APOSTLESHIP OF GENTILES 75 

tion to accede in the interests of peace ; but Saul stoutly 
resisted the proposal, and eventually he prevailed. 1 The Saul's 
Apostles, particularly James, the Lord's brother, Peter, and refufial - 
John, sided with him. They approved his Gospel, declaring His Gospel 
it sufficient and requiring no addition to it in the way of apprc 
legal observance. And, recognising that ' there are diver- cf. Gal. u. 
sities in gifts of grace, but the same Spirit/ and that ' each 6 ' 
has his own gift of grace from God, one in this way 1 cor. xii. 
and another in that,' and ' as the Lord has apportioned to ^ VUi 7> 
each, as God has called each, so he should comport himself,' 
they sanctioned his purpose of devoting himself to the 
evangelisation of the Gentiles. That was manifestly his 
providential vocation, whereas Peter, on the other hand, 
was marked out by his peculiar aptitude for the work of 
evangelising the Jews. And so they allocated to each his 
separate province and bade each Godspeed. 

It was a wise and magnanimous decision, and the spirit a mag- 
of the apostolic triad is pleasantly evinced by the solitary agreement, 
stipulation which they attached to their approval of Saul's 
vocation. They desired that, when he and Barnabas went 
on their mission to the Gentiles, they should still cherish a Gal. u. 10. 
kindly remembrance of their poor Jewish brethren and 
continue to relieve their necessities. It was at once a 
grateful acknowledgment of the generosity of the Antiochene 
converts and a recognition of the efficacy of such brotherly 
sympathy in healing the enmity between Jew and Gentile. 
And they knew well that their desire was granted ere it was 
preferred, since Saul was eager to make atonement for the 
past and succour the distress which he had helped to create. 

The conference served a profitable end by establishing i ts happy 
Saul in the Church's confidence and legitimising his message. effect ' 
It furnished him with a large opportunity, and it appears that 

1 In Gal. ii. 5 the true reading is certainly ovdi irpbs ibpav di-a/iev, ' not even for 
an hour did we yield' ; but several important authorities (Vet. It., Pesh. Syr., D, 
Iren., Vict., Tert., Ambrstr.) omit ovSi : 'for an hour we yielded.' That is: 
Titus was circumcised. It was a voluntary concession. He was not compelled, 
but in view of the clamour the point was temporarily conceded in the interests of 
peace. The variant is probably a mistaken attempt to harmonise Paul's action in 
the case of Titus with his subsequent action in the case of Timothy (Ac. xvi. 3. 
Cf. p. 121). It may be remarked that, if Titus were circumcised, this would 
preclude the idea that the occasion was the Council of 49 (cf. Append. I), 
since such a concession, while conceivable earlier, was then out of the question. 



xxu. 17-21. 



76 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

he zealously availed himself of it. The hearts of the Jewish 
Christians were, moreover, kindly disposed toward him by 
the generous subsidy which he had brought them and his 
sympathetic assistance in the distribution ; and the common 
distress had drawn all the citizens together. On the occasion 

Ac. ix. 29, of his previous visit to Jerusalem ten years previously he had 

3 °* been driven from the city by Jewish animosity ; * but this 

was now forgotten, and he preached freely and successfully. 

Cf. Rom. To the last Saul loved his nation and yearned for its salvation; 

uc.x-5.-XrX. an £ k e wou i ( j joyfully devote himself to the ministry thus 
pleasingly presented to him. 

Saul's Amid these happy employments the days passed swiftly. 

the Autumn glided into winter, and still he tarried at Jerusalem, 

Temple. 0D ij v i 0US of the call of the Gentile world. Yet he was not 
without misgivings. It would be about the commencement 

cf. Ac. of the year 47 when, after the devout Jewish fashion, he one 
day betook himself to the Temple for a season of solitary 
prayer. 2 A problem was pressing on his mind, and he would 
fain know the will of God. The question was whether he 
should remain in Jerusalem and continue the work which 
he had so auspiciously begun ; and in the fervour of his 
supplication he was rapt into unconsciousness of his sur- 
roundings. 3 His experience on the road to Damascus was 
repeated. The Glorified Lord appeared to him, and charged 
him to leave Jerusalem immediately. Meanwhile indeed 
the Jews were lending a ready ear to his message ; but their 
complacence would be short-lived : ' they will not receive 
your testimony concerning Me.' It reveals the recent trend 
of Saul's thoughts that he remonstrated and urged that 
there was reason to anticipate a happier issue. His message 
was invested with powerful credentials which could hardly 
fail to conquer the unbelief of the Jews. ' Lord,' he pleaded, 
* those very men know that it was I who imprisoned and 

1 Cf. p. 61. * Cf. Append. I. 

8 yev^daL fxe iv eKericrei, 'fell into an ecstasy.' The idea of ^K<xra<n% 
{i^icraadai) is that one is 'beside oneself,' outwith the control of the ordinary 
faculties, a condition induced by powerful emotion, as surprise or joy (cf. Mk. v. 
42; Lk. v. 26; Ac. ii. 7, iii. 10) ; hence also of insanity (Mk. iii. 21; 
2 Cor. V. 13). Cf. Plut. Sol. viii. I : eaurj-J/aro '^Karacnv r&v \oyi<rfx<2v, 'he 
feigned himself insane.' In his Paraphr. Erasmus has here 'raptus extra me.' 
The antithesis is kv eavnp yevfodcu (xii. 11) or els eavrbv i\deiv (Lk. xv. 17). 



CALL TO APOSTLESHIP OF GENTILES 77 

scourged in every synagogue * those who believed on Thee ; 
and when the blood of Stephen Thy martyr was being poured 
out, I am the very man who stood by and approved and 
watched the garments of his slayers.' Surely his testimony 
must carry conviction ! 2 The Lord ignored the argument 
and imperiously reiterated His command. The evangelisa- 
tion of Jerusalem was not Saul's task ; his work lay else- 
where. ' Go your way ; for I will send you afar as My 
Apostle 3 to the Gentiles.' 

That sentence defined Saul's mission and sealed his His apos. 
ordination. He was thenceforth an Apostle of Jesus Christ mission" 1 
— the Apostle of the Gentiles ; and his Apostleship was a c . f - Rom - 

divine commission. Cf. Gai. i 

1. 

1 Scourging was included in the synagogal discipline (cf. Mt. x. 17, xxiii. 34; 
2 Cor. xi. 24). Cf. Schtirer, II. ii. p. 66; Lightfoot and Wetstein on Mt. x. 17. 

2 Cf. Chrys. : ' A priori (dirb Xoyiar/xuy) he must needs suspect that they would 
certainly receive it.' 

8 e^a7roffreXw, cf. Mt. x. 5, 16. 



THE FIRST MISSION 

*E% r en with so soft a surge and an increasing, 
Drunk of the sand and thwarted of the clod, 
Stilled and astir and checked and never-ceasing 
Spreadeth the great wave of the grace of God ; 

' Bears to the marishes and bitter places 

Healing for hurt and for their poisons balm, 
Isle after isle in infinite embraces 
Floods and enfolds and fringes with the palm.' 

Frederic W. H. Myers. 

I 

Ac.xii.2s- ORDINATION OF ANTIOCH 

xiii. 3. 

Paul the His call determined Saul's future career. It resolved his 

lhe° stIeot perplexity, and he forthwith addressed himself, with a 

Gentiles, devotion which never flagged, to the work for which God 

had hitherto been preparing him all unconsciously — the high 

enterprise of winning the Gentile world for the Faith of 

Christ. It was a momentous crisis, and he marked it by an 

eloquent and abiding monument. Hitherto he had gone 

by his Jewish name of Saul ; but from the hour of his 

vocation to the Apostleship of the Gentiles he disused it 

cf. Ac. xv. and went by his Gentile name of Paul, 1 even in his intercourse 

with the Jews. 
Return to His path was clear, and he made no delay in entering 
upon it. Yet he did not embark on his mission from 
Jerusalem. Antioch was the cradle of Gentile Christianity, 
the capital of Gentile Christendom, and it was fitting that the 
Antiochene Church should consecrate and commission him. 

1 Cf. p. 21. In the Received Text the Gentile name is first introduced in 
Ac. xili. 9 ; but in xii. 25 SyrP has * Saul who was called Paul,' while some minuses, 
read 'Paul' and one 'Saul Paul.' Again, in xiii. 1 for 'Saul' several minuses. 
read ' Paul.' The probability is that it was after his call in the Temple that he 
changed his name. 
78 



THE FIRST MISSION 79 

And therefore he left the Holy City, now rejoicing in the 
near prospect of an abundant harvest, and returned to the 
Syrian capital. 

He did not return alone. Barnabas accompanied him. Accom- 
His generous soul not only hailed his comrade's call with Barnabas, 
glad approval but claimed the privilege of sharing in the 
great enterprise ; and, recognising how arduous it would 
prove, he lent his practical counsel for its effective conduct. 
It was needful that the Apostle, after the example of the Cf. 2 Ki. 
ancient Prophets, should be provided with an attendant — «.J£' v 
a young disciple who should relieve him of the burden of 
lesser offices and at the same time learn by his example 
the art of an evangelist ; and it so happened that Barnabas 
had a young cousin 1 whom he deemed competent. His 
Jewish name was John, and he bore also, according to the Attended 
custom of the time, the Latin name of Mark. He resided at Mali?" 
Jerusalem with his mother Mary, who was evidently a cf. Ac. xn. 
widow and who was distinguished by her hospitality. Her I2 " 17 ' 
house was a resort of the Christians in the city ; and since Cf. 1 Pet. 
her son owed his conversion to Peter, it is no wonder that the v 
great Apostle was held by the household in especial venera- 
tion. In after days John Mark served as Peter's attendant, 
but his chief fame is his authorship of the Gospel which bears 
his name and which is credibly reputed a report of the 
Evangelic Tradition as he heard it from his master's lips. 2 
Already, in the judgment of his kinsman at all events, he 
had given evidence of his fitness, and he was attached to the Cf. Ac. xiii. 
mission in the capacity of attendant. His service would 5 * 
include primarily the business of amanuensis, and probably 
also the administration of Baptism — an office which Paul cf. 1 Cor. 
seldom discharged with his own hands. 8 ! ' H ' 17 ' 

1 Cf. Col. iv. 10 : Map/cos 6 ave\f/ib$ Bapvd^a. ave\pt.6$ was a cousin -ger man, 
whether on his father's side {patruelis) or on his mother's {consobrinus). Cf. 
Moulton and Milligan, Vocab. It is thus uncertain whether Mary, the mother of 
John Mark, was sister or sister-in-law to Barnabas' father. The use of aveipibt 
the sense of dde\<fn.dov$, ' nephew ' (A.V.), was late. 

* Cf. Papias in Eus. Hist. Eccl. ill. 39. 

* vvrjpirrfs (Ac. xiii. 5), 'attendant,' is used in the classics of the armour 
bearer {<TKevo<f>6pos) who acted as squire to a hoplite or heavy-armed soldier 
(cf. Thuc. in. 17 ; Xen. Cyrop. 11. i. 31) and was himself equipped with bow *»nr? 
sling (cf. Aristoph. Av. 11 86 f.). According to Act. Barn, vi, apparently, Mark 
acted as Paul's amanuensis and reader. 



80 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

- 

Tk« The Antiochen© Church was predominantly Gentile, and 

Prophets it appears that it had not as yet adopted the synagogal 

Teachers, organisation which was subsequently universal in Christian 

communities. It had no Presbyters or Elders, and its 

leaders were Prophets and Teachers. The former were 

doubtless the fugitives who had settled in the city toward 

the close of the year 44 ; and though Agabus seems to have 

taken his departure, three still remained — Symeon Niger, 1 

Lucius of Cyrene, 2 and Manaen, an ex-courtier of Herod 

Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea. 3 And what were 

the ' Teachers ' ? In those early days when there were no 

written Gospels, the story of our Lord's earthly life was 

preserved after the Jewish manner by oral tradition, 4 and 

its accurate transmission was a needful and difficult task, 

demanding not only laborious discipline but scrupulous 

faithfulness. This was the business of the Teachers ; 5 and 

the importance of their service, as will appear in the sequel, 6 

increased with the progress of the years. They were not a 

distinct order. An Apostle or a Prophet or a Presbyter 

Cf. 1 Cor. might be a Teacher ; and the transmission of the Evangelic 

xi.^23, xv. Tradition to his converts was not the least of Paul's apostolic 

concerns. 
Dedication On reaching; Antioch Barnabas and Paul conferred with 

and ° 

despatch the three Prophets, their colleagues in the leadership of the 
Church, and acquainted them with their purpose. It was 



of the 

mission 

aries. 



1 Symeon and Simon were interchangeable forms (cf. Ac. xv. 14), and there is 
no impossibility in the suggestion that Symeon Niger was Simon of Cyrene 
(cf. Mt. xxvii. 32). Niger means 'black,' but since it was a common name, it 
need not imply that he was a negro. 

1 Perhaps Paul's crvyyeyrjs, i.e., 'countryman' or 'fellow Jew' (Rom. xvi. 21). 

8 Manaen is the Jewish name Menahem. <riWpo0os does not mean 'foiter- 
brother,' colladaneus (Vulg.). It was a court title, denoting a member of the 
prince's personal retinue (cf. Deissmann, Bib. Stud., pp. 310 ft*.). Thus Manaen 
was not a plebeian, the child of Antipas' nurse, but an ex-courtier, one of the few 
men of worldly rank in the primitive Church. It may be that he was a son of 
Menahem, the Essene prophet, who during the school-days of Herod the Great 
predicted his elevation to the Jewish throne, and enjoyed the royal favour on the 
fulfilment of the prophecy (cf. Jos. Ant. xv. x. 5). 

* Cf . The Days of His Flesh, pp. xiii ff. 

' Ambrstr. on 1 Cor. xii. 28 : ' Illos dicit doctores qui in Ecclesia litteris et 
lectionibus {v.L traditionibus) retinendis pueros imbuebant more Synagogae ; quia 
traditio illorum ad nos transitum fecit.' 

• Cf. pp. 592 ff. 



THE FIRST MISSION 81 

a momentous departure, and the Prophets durst not lightly 
lend it their sanction. They sought direction of God, after 
the accustomed manner, by a season of prayer and fasting ; Cf. Ac. 
nor did they seek in vain. The Holy Spirit illumined their 
minds, and they recognised the will of God. They convened 
the Church, 1 and in name of the congregation ordained the 
missionaries and sent them forth on their high adventure. 



II 

EVANGELISATION OF CYPRUS AckIm, 

4-12. 

It was about the beginning of March 47 that Paul and The island 
Barnabas, attended by John Mark, took their departure ° Cyprus - 
from Antioch. 2 They had chosen the island of Cyprus as 
the first scene of their missionary labours ; and it was a 
natural choice. Cyprus lay nigh at hand, only seventy 
miles distant from Seleuceia, the port of Antioch. And 
since it was the native country of Barnabas, his local Cf. Ac. iv. 
intimacies would ensure them a welcome and win their 3 ' 
message a readier hearing. Moreover, the ground had 
already been broken by those fugitives from the first cf. xi. 19. 
persecution who had subsequently found their way to 
Antioch and inaugurated the momentous innovation of 
Gentile evangelisation. It may seem indeed that this 
should rather have precluded Paul from Cyprus, since his 
rule, at all events in after days, was never to ' preach the Rom. xv. 
Gospel where Christ's name was known, lest he should be 2°c r. x . 
building on another man's foundation ' ; but it should be x s> l6 - 
considered that it was to the Jews that his predecessors had Cf. Ac. xi. 
preached. The Gentiles had never yet heard the Gospel, I9 ' 

1 Luke's narrative here (vers. 2, 3) is very concise, but it would be clear to 
readers familiar with the democratic procedure of the primitive Church. Even at 
Jerusalem questions were not decided by the authority of the Apostles or the 
Presbyters but by the vote of the brethren, the judgment of the Church, and the 
Apostles merely gave effect thereto (cf. Ac. i. 15, 16, 21-23 ; xv. 22). Accordingly 
in ver. 3 the subject is not 'the Prophets and Teachers' but 'the brethren,' 'the 
whole Church ' ; and it is so defined in Cod. Bez. (D) by the insertion of irdPTts 
after rpoffev^dfxevoi. 

8 Cf. Append. I. 
F 



82 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

and it was to them especially that his mission was directed. 
Nor was Cyprus his ultimate venue. It was a mere stepping- 
stone to Asia Minor and the West, and thither his purpose 
already reached. 

its extent Cyprus was a considerable island. 1 Its coast-line 

portanee. measured three hundred and ninety miles, and its length 
from Cape Dinaretum in the east to Cape Acamas in the 
west was a hundred and sixty. In ancient days, when it 
was ruled by tyrants, it contained no fewer than nine 
kingdoms, and in the time of Pliny its towns numbered 
fifteen. 2 Nor were its resources inadequate to the main- 
tenance of so large a population. In its midst betwixt the 
mountain ranges of Olympus and Aoiis stretched a fertile 
plain, watered by the river Pediaeus and clothed not only 
with vineyards, olive orchards, and corn-fields, but with 
forests which furnished timber for the shipbuilders of Soli. 
Its mineral wealth too was abundant. In the very centre 
of the island at the base of Mount Aoiis lay Tamassus with 
its mines so rich in copper ore and sulphate of copper for 
medicinal uses. 3 Citium and Salamis were the seats of a 
prosperous trade in the manufacture and export of salt. 4 

intellectual Nor was Cyprus destitute of intellectual renown. Salamis 
' was the birthplace of Aristos the historian, and Citium gave 
to the world Zeno, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, and 
Apollonius the physician. 

a Roman The island was annexed to Rome by Cato Uticensis in 

province. . J 

59 B.C.,, and it was an Imperial Province under a propraetor 
until a.d. 22 when Augustus made it a Senatorial Province 
under a proconsul. 5 The latter had his seat at Paphos, a 
seaport and the Roman capital, situated at the south-west 
corner of the island. The city was styled New Paphos to 
distinguish it from Old Paphos, six or seven miles to the 
south-east, famous for an ancient temple of Aphrodite 
whither a multitude of worshippers resorted from the other 
cities to keep festival every year. 6 

1 Cf. Strabo, 681-85. » Plin. Nat. Hist. V. 35. 

* Strabo, 684 ; Plin. Nat. Hist, xxxiv. 2. * Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxi. 39, 41. 
6 Dio Cassius, liii. 12. Cf. Lightfoot, Essays on ' Supernatural Religion? 

pp. 292 ff. 

• Cf. Horn. Od. viii. 362 f. ; Hor. Od. 1. xxx. 1 f. ; Strabo, 683 ; Tac. Hist 
II. 2, 3. 






THE FIRST MISSION 83 

A stream of Jewish emigrants had flowed into Cyprus Jewish 
during the hospitable regime of the Ptolemies, and it wasJJon Ula * 
reinforced under the early empire when Augustus farmed a. 1 Mac. 
out the copper mines of the island to Herod the Great. 1 xv * * 3 ' 
Thus, when Paul and his company landed at Salamis, they 
found there a large Jewish population, so large that there The syna- 
were several synagogues in the town ; and they opened lafamL° 
their mission by visiting these and preaching to the congre- 
gations. It may seem strange that, though their errand 
was to the Gentiles, they should have addressed themselves 
to the Jews ; but this was Paul's constant method to the 
last. In every town which he visited in the course of his 
travels, he immediately sought out the synagogue and there 
presented his initial appeal. ' Both to Jew, in the first 
instance, and to Gentile ' was his rule ; and it was indeed the Rom. i. 16; 
fitting procedure. The Law had been a providential pre- c 
paration for the Gospel ; and it w r as a reasonable expectation 
that the Jews should welcome the Saviour of whom their 
Scriptures testified, and recognise it as their vocation to 
commend Him to the world. The synagogue was every- 
where the Gospel's rightful home, its point d'appui ; and it 
was only when the Jews had rejected their Messiah that cf. Ac. xiii 
Paul reluctant!} 7 turned from them and addressed his appeal 17-28^ 
to the Gentiles. 

Salamis was only the first station, and after preaching progress 
there the missionaries proceeded on their way. They theSiand 
advanced from town to town, turning now southward, now 
northward, but always pushing westward, until they had 
traversed the breadth and length of the island. 2 Their 
labour seems to have accomplished little. Apparently indeed 
they were courteously received by reason, doubtless, of tke 
esteem wherewith Barnabas was regarded by his fellow- 
countrymen ; at all events, they encountered in their 
progress through the island none of the hostility which the 
Gospel elsewhere aroused in Jewish breasts. But while there 

1 Jos. Ant. xvi. iv. 5. 

1 SUpxetrOai. with accus. (ver. 6) is the phrase in the Book of Acts for a missionary 
progress through a country (cf. xiv. 24 ; xv. 3, 41 ; xvi. 6 ; xviii. 23 ,- xix. 1, 
21 ; xx. 2). It implies constant deviation in order to visit towns lying off the 
direct route, and this is expressed by the variant in Cod. Bez. (D) koX wepuXdoprofr 

8$ O.VTWV S\f]V T7)¥ Vr}<TQV, 



84 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

/ is no evidence of opposition, there is none of success either. 
It is not recorded that they won a single convert in the 
course of their peregrination. 

Paphss At length they reached Paphos, and there they achieved 

their first triumph. Being the administrative capital, the 
city was the seat of the Roman proconsul, and the office was 
held in those days by Sergius Paulus. Contemporary history 
is almost silent regarding him, 1 but the sacred narrative 
describes him as ' a shrewd man/ 2 evidently, in view of the 
sequel, with the intention of vindicating his reputation for 
sanity. At the same time, while practical sagacity was his 
chief characteristic, it appears that he was in no wise 
destitute of intellectual distinction. At all events it is 
probable that he is the Sergius Paulus mentioned by Pliny 
in the list of authors who had furnished him with informa- 
tion for the second and eighteenth books of his Natural 
History, since both these books contain local and antiquarian 
memorabilia of the island of Cyprus such as an intelligent 
resident would be likely to observe and chronicle. 3 

Astrology, The proconsul was thus at once a man of affairs and a 
man of letters ; nevertheless he was a child of his age and 
was imbued with its spirit. At that period the idea was 
universal that the lives of men c tempered with the stars ' 
and their destinies were legible on the face of the firmament ; 
and the astrologer 4 who professed to decipher the celestial 
emblazonry was held in boundless reverence. It was not 
merely in heathendom that the notion prevailed, for many 
astrologers were Jews ; 5 nor was it only by the ignorant 
multitude that it was entertained, but by statesmen and 
princes like Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar, 6 and the Emperors 
Augustus and Tiberius. 7 The astrologers believed in their 

1 A Cyprian inscription is dated EIII nATAOT [ANe]THATOT, 'in the 
proconsulship of Paulus.' Cf. Lightfoot, Essays on 'Supernatural Religion,'' 
p. 294. 

2 oTjvccns is knowledge of practical affairs (cf. Suidas under ei<r/3o\i7 : fffoeais, 
iirl\r]\J/is twv Trpay/xiruv) as distinguished from <ro<pla, 'wisdom,' which is 
intellectual (cf. Plat. Def. : o-ocpla, i-mo-T^ixi] auvirSderos' i-mo-T^fir) rQv del 6ptuv 
4TTL(TTrifj,r} OewprjTiKT) t??s twu Svtwv alrlas). Cf. Mt. xi. 25. 

* Cf. Nat. Hist. 11. 90, 97, 112; xviii. 12, 57. 

4 Variously named astrologus, magus, ntathematicus, Chaldaus. 

8 Cf. Juv. vi. 542 ff. ; Tac. Ann. xii. 52. 

8 Cic. De Div. 11. 87-99. 7 Suet. Aug. 94 ; Tib. 14 ; Tac. Ann. VI. 20 f. 



THE FIRST MISSION 85 

art, and so far they were no impostors ; yet they usually 
turned it to ill account, trading on the credulity of their 
clients for lust of gold and power. And thus they exerted 
a baleful influence, insomuch that the Imperial Senate 
repeatedly decreed their expulsion from Rome, 1 and the 
Christian Church in after days sternly condemned them, 
denying them the Sacrament of Baptism and casting them 
out of her communion. 2 Yet such was the fascination of 
their mystic art that no severity availed to suppress it, and 
the superstition lingered until it was dispelled by the progress 
of scientific knowledge. It was still potent in the fifteenth 
century. King Louis xi of France held frequent commerce 
with the stars ; 3 and even after ' the new learning ' had 
dissipated the long darkness of the Middle Ages, Philip 
Melanchthon was ' a believer in judicial astrology, and a 
caster of horoscopes, and an interpreter of dreams.' 

It was the fashion for exalted personages to retain The 
astrologers in their councils ; and just as the Emperor Barjesus? 
Tiberius was attended by his Thrasyllus during his retreat on 
the island of Capreae, and King Louis by his Martius Galeotti 
in the castle of Plessis-les-Tours, so Sergius Paulus had an 
astrologer in his retinue. He was a Jew ; and his proper 
name was Barjesus, a patronymic like Bartholomew, 
Bartimseus, and Barsabbas, signifying ' Son of Jesus ' or 
' Joshua,' while his official title was Elymas, ' the Wizard.' 4 
Alert to all that transpired in his province, the Proconsul 
had heard of the doings of the missionaries in their progress 
through the island ; and on their arrival at Paphos he 
summoned them before him and, with his astrologer in 
attendance, inquired into their propaganda. 

It was a golden opportunity, and they gladly embraced His 
it. They expounded the Gospel to him, and he listened jj* 1 ^* 7 
with keen interest. 5 Barjesus was standing by ; and when mission- 

2UT1CS* 

1 Cf. Tac. Ann. II. 32 ; Hist. I. 22 ; Suet. Tib. 36 ; Vitell. 14. 

* Cf. Bingham, Antiq. XI. v. 8 ; XVI. v. I. 

' Cf. Scott, Quentin Durward, Note 43. 

4 'EXt'/ncts, interpreted in the text 6 fidyos, 'the Wizard,' is probably akin to 
Arabic Wm, 'wise' or 'able' ; and the variant 'ErotyuSy, 'Ready,' in Cod. Bez. (D) 
is a Greek rendering of the title. 

6 After 7rt(rreios (ver. 8) Cod. Bez. (D) and several other authorities add iireify 
IjBiara iJKOvev atirwv, 'since he was hearing them very gladly.' 



86 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

he marked how his master was impressed, he took alarm. 

His apprehension was lest they should supplant him in the 

Proconsul's favour and oust him from his lucrative office. 

And so he kept interrupting them, until Paul lost patience. 

He looked the charlatan in the face. ' You mass of trickery 

and rascality ! you " Son of the Devil " 1 ' he cried, playing 

upon his name Barjesus ; ' you enemy of all righteousness ! 

Hos.xiv.9. will you not stop twisting " the Lord's straight ways" ? ' 

There was indeed hot indignation in the Apostle's heart, 

but there was also shame ; for in the Jewish impostor's 

opposition to the Gospel he recognised the self-same spirit 

which had once actuated himself. And he denounced 

against him the very judgment which he had himself suffered: 

* Now, look you, the Lord's hand is upon you, and you will 

His doom be blind, not seeing the sun for a season.' And so it came to 

ness!" pass. A mist fell upon the astrologer's eyes, and like the 

Cf. Ac. ix. persecutor on the road to Damascus he had to be ' led away 

8 by the hand/ 

Conversion It was a temporary visitation, and there was in it a merci- 
Proconsui. ful design. Paul's hope was that, resembling himself in his 
sin and his punishment, Barjesus would resemble him also 
in his repentance. ' By the sign whereby he had himself 
been won/ says St. Chrysostom, ' he desired to win him too. 
And, moreover, " for a season " is not the word of one who 
would punish, but of one who would convert ; for had he 
meant punishment, he would have made him permanently 
blind/ The issue is unrecorded, 1 but the miracle was in no 
wise unavailing. Whether it won the astrologer or no, it 
won the Proconsul. 

Ac. xiii. 13, ttt 

14a ; GaL 1X1 

•v. 13-15 ; 

%.$£ evangelisation of southern galatia 



2Itf. 



The Pro- Paphos was the western limit of Cyprus, and now that they 

ofPam- had traversed the island, it was time for the missionaries 

to take their departure and carry the Gospel farther. Their 

destination was the Province of Pamphylia on the southern 

1 According to the apocryphal Acts of Barnabas Barjesus continued obdurate, 
and persecuted Barnabas and Mark on their second visit to Cyprus (cf. Ac. xv. 
39). 



THE FIRST MISSION 87 

coast of Asia Minor, and it presented an attractive and 
hopeful field. Its population included a considerable 
Jewish element, and it had been represented in the Holy 
City on that memorable Day of Pentecost when the Holy cf. Ac u. 
Spirit descended on the Apostles and three thousand souls I0 * 
were won to the faith. Thus the Gospel was not unknown 
in Pamphylia, and the soil was in a measure prepared. It 
was a fair and fertile country, well watered by the Cestrus, the 
Eurymedon, and lesser streams which flowed from the 
Pisidian uplands. The capital was Perga, a sacred city 
with a famous temple of Artemis on an adjacent eminence ; 
and there were other towns, chiefly Aspendus and the 
seaports of Attaleia and Side. 1 

It would be about the end of June when they set sail from p au i 
Paphos, and they steered north-westward to the port of ^ ken 
Attaleia at the mouth of the Cestrus. The river was navig- malaria, 
able, and the ship proceeded six miles up its course to Perga ; 
and there they disembarked, designing probably to make 
the capital the headquarters of their operations. But, says 
St. Thomas a Kempis, ' homo proponit sed Deus disponit, 
nee est in homine via ejus.' Pamphylia is a level crescent, 
encircling the Pamphylian Sea and backed by the lofty range 
of the Taurus. In midsummer the climate is warm and 
enervating, and malaria, the plague of all the southern fringe 
of Asia Minor, is there especially prevalent. It was early 
in July when they reached Perga, and the sudden plunge 
from the free air of Cyprus and the cool sea-breezes into that 
sweltering caldron was trying for them, particularly for 
Paul who had borne the chief burden of the work. He was 
seized with malaria and experienced its peculiar miseries — 
fever, ague, and racking headache all the more distressing 
that it affected his eyes, already enfeebled by the blinding 
flash on the road to Damascus. 2 

It was the beginning of a lifelong affliction. The malady a chronic 
clung to him all his days ; and whenever his strength ran malad y- 
low, it would grip him and lay him prostrate. It was a 
grievous embarrassment to his ministry. Again and again, 
as will appear in the sequel, it frustrated his missionary 
designs, compelling him to abandon the path which he had 

1 Cf. Strabo, 667. • Cf. Append. III. 



SS LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



a Cor. xii. 
7- 



Cf. Job iii. 
23, xix. 8 ; 
Hos. ii. 6. 



Retreat 
to the 
Pisidian 
uplands. 



Desertion 
of John 
Mark. 



Cf. Phm. 
24 ; Col. 
iv. 10; 
2 Tim. iv. 
11. 

The pas- 
sage of the 
Taurus. 



chosen and forgo what seemed precious opportunities ; and 
for a while it fretted his eager spirit. He regarded it, in his 
own phrase, as ' a messenger of Satan to buffet him ' : each 
recurring attack was a disabling stroke of the Adversary, the 
Enemy of the Gospel. Presently, however, he came to 
regard it as a heavenly ally. Experience taught him that, 
when he was restrained from the course which he had 
meditated, that on which he was driven conducted him to a 
grander service than he had ever imagined. And thus he 
recognised his infirmity as, in the language of Scripture, ' a 
hedge of thorns ' fencing in the way which God had marked 
out for him and preventing him, with gracious severity, 
from turning aside into paths of his own choosing. 

And so it proved at the very outset. It was impossible for 
the invalid to remain in Pamphylia, and he and Barnabas 
decided to escape from the enervating climate and travel 
northward into the uplands of the Province of Galatia, and 
there prosecute their mission. They were, however, con- 
fronted by an unpleasant denouement. It appears that John 
Mark, softly nurtured in his comfortable home at Jerusalem, 
had taken unkindly to the hardships of the mission ; and 
Paul's sickness completed his discomfiture. He feared lest 
he too should sicken, and the proposal to face the toilsome 
ascent of the Taurus and venture into the unknown territory 
beyond smote him with consternation. He refused to 
proceed, and incontinently decamped and returned home. 1 
It was sheer pusillanimity. ' John/ it is written, ' withdrew 
from them and returned to Jerusalem.' The sting of the 
sentence lies in his designation as ' John.' It was his Jewish 
name. His Gentile name was ' Mark,' and it had been his 
while he shared the mission to the Gentiles ; but now he 
had forfeited it by his recreance, and it was restored to him 
only after he had purged his shame. 

Abandoned by their attendant, Paul and Barnabas took 
their departure from Perga. Their route lay across the 

1 Cf. Chrys. : rl bijirore 8k 'Iu)&vvr)S dvaxupu &r' atrtov ; &re iirl fiaKporipav 
\011rbv ffreWo/jiivup 686f k<lItqi ye bin]p£Tr)s iKewos %v\ atirol 5e rbv klvSvvou &xov. 
There is a happy touch of humour in the comment of quidam in Jo. Stephanus 
Menochius : 'ex affectu erga matrem degentem Ierosolymis.' John was home- 
sick, and ' either he did not like the work, or he wanted to go see his mother 
(Matt. Henry). 



THE FIRST MISSION 89 

steep and rugged range of the Taurus ; and it was not merely 
a toilsome but a dangerous journey, since the mountains 
were infested by brigands x and swept by torrents difficult to 
ford when they were running full. 2 In midsummer indeed 
the torrent-beds would be dry, but the ' dangers from a Cor. xi 
brigands ' would be all the greater. The journey would be a a ' 
severe ordeal for a broken invalid, and they would make 
what haste they could, preaching nowhere by the way. 

It would be about the beginning of August when they pisidian 
reached Pisidian Antioch. This important city belonged to Antloch - 
the ancient country of Phrygia ; but since it was situated 
close to the border of Pisidia, it was styled ' Antioch toward 
Pisidia/ 3 in order to distinguish it from other cities of 
the same name, especially Syrian Antioch and Antioch on 
the Masander ; and the cumbrous designation was abbre- 
viated to ' Pisidian Antioch.' 4 The ancient delimitation, 
however, had been obliterated under the imperial regime, 
and in those days Antioch belonged to the Roman Province 
of Galatia. 6 This enormous province extended diagonally 
across Asia Minor from the shore of the Euxine in the north- 
east until it adjoined the Province of Pamphylia in the 
south-west. It embraced the ancient kingdom of Pontus, 
much of Paphlagonia, the ancient country of Galatia, most 
of Lycaonia and Pisidia, and the south-east corner of 

1 Cf. Strabo, 568, 570. 

8 Cf. Ramsay, Church in Rom. Emp., p. 23. 

* 'AvTidxeia 7) irpbs Hiai8iq.. Cf. Strabo, 557, 569, 577. 

4 'A^Tioxeia y\ Iliffidia. Cf. Ac. xiii. 14, where T.R. elt 'AvriSxeiuv rfjt 
Ili<n8ias, 'Antioch of Pisidia,' is due to a subsequent extension of the Pisidian 
frontier (cf. Plin. Nat. Hist. V. 24). 

8 It is here assumed that ' Galatia ' signifies not, according to the old view 
maintained by Lightfoot, the ancient kingdom of the Galatse, a Celtic race, but 
the Roman Province of Galatia (cf. Ramsay, Church in Rom. Emp., pp. 77 ff. ; 
Lake, Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 254 ff.). The term is thus not ethno- 
graphical but political ; and ' the Galatians ' to whom Paul's letter is addressed 
were not the northern Galatse but the Phrygians of Antioch and the Lycaonians of 
Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe whom he evangelised during his first mission and 
revisited in the course of his second (cf. Ac. xvi. 6) and third (cf. xviii. 23). The 
former or North Galatian theory involves the awkward consequence that he 
engaged in an important ministry which is unrecorded in the Book of Acts and 
which must be assigned to the second mission. Cf. Ac. xvi. 6, where, however, 
ttjv Qpvyiap Kal Ya\a.Tucrji> x&pa-v means not * Phrygia and the country of Galatia' 
but 'the Phrygian and Galatian District' or 'the Phrygb-Galatic District,' i.e., 
the oart of the Province of Galatia once called Phrygian. 



lation. 



90 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Phrygia ; and since it was so large, it was, for the sake oi 
convenience, apportioned into ' Districts ' which followed 
the boundaries of the ancient countries — the Phrygian 
District, the Isaurian, the Lycaonian, and so forth. 1 

itspopu- Antioch belonged to the Phrygian District, and the 
population was composed of four elements. 2 There were, 
first of all, the native Phrygians. The aboriginal race still 
occupied the surrounding country, but the city was a Greek 
settlement from Magnesia on the Maeander, 3 founded appa- 
rently by Seleucus Nicator, the first of the Seleucid dynasty 
(312-280 B.C.), who named it after his father Antiochus. 
It was thus originally a Greek city ; but in it, as in all the 
cities which he founded, Seleucus granted rights of citizen- 
ship to Jewish settlers, 4 and so the population included a 
large and influential Jewish community. Finally, in the 
year 25 B.C. the country passed under the Roman dominion, 
and toward 6 B.C. Augustus made Antioch a Roman colony 
with the designation Colonia Ccesarea Antiochia, settling 
there the veterans of the Legio Alauda with a view to the 
pacification of the country, particularly the protection of 
the great Trade Route against the depredations of the 
brigands who infested the Pisidian mountains. 

a kindly Paul reached Antioch in a piteous plight, enfeebled by 
sickness and spent by the fatigue of his painful passage of 
the Taurus ; and it was impossible for him to address him- 
self immediately to the work of evangelisation. He was, 
however, fortunate in his new surroundings. The city stood 
some three thousand six hundred feet above the sea-level, 
and the brisk air allayed his fever and repaired his wasted 

cf. Gai. vigour. Nor did he lack the precious succour of human 
sympathy. He was indeed confined to his lodging, but 
Barnabas went abroad. He would talk of the Gospel, and 
his gracious bearing would win him good-will and prompt a 
kindly interest in his suffering comrade. One friend above 

1 $pvyla X(6pa, 'IffavptKrj X<£pa, Avuaovucr} Xwpa, or in full TaXaTticrj X&pa ryft 
AvKaovia^ 'the Galatian District of Lycaonia,' as distinguished from ' A»Tiex* iat 'V 
Xd>pa, the part of Lycaonia belonging to the Regnutn Antiochi. 

8 Cf. Ramsay, Cities of St. Paul, pp. 245 ft 

* Strabo, 577. 

* Cf. Jos. Ant. xii. Hi. I. 



reception. 



iv. 13-15. 



THE FIRST MISSION 91 

all was raised up in those dark days ; and this was the Luke ihe 
physician Luke, 1 He was a Greek, and later tradition says P b y 3lclan 
that he was a proselyte to Judaism ; 2 but this is refuted by 
the fact that he was uncircumcised, and the probability is Cf. Coi. iv. 
that he belonged to that interesting class, the ' God-fearers,' 
those pious Gentiles who, dissatisfied with their heathen 
religion and attracted by the pure ideals of the Jewish Faith, 
attached themselves to the Synagogue and shared its worship 
without submitting to the ceremonial rites of the Mosaic 
Law. 8 He was summoned to the invalid's couch ; and as he 
ministered to his bodily infirmity, he heard from his lips 
the blessed secret which his heart had been craving. Thence- 
forward he was the Apostle's dearest disciple, and the Church 
owes him not only the gracious Gospel which bears his name 
and breathes his master's spirit, but the Book of Acts, that 
precious record of the heroic ministry in which he bore so 
large a part, 

Paul made his first public appearance in the Jewish Paul's first 
synagogue one Sabbath, probably about a fortnight after his aESfin 
arrival in the city. 4 The congregation was composed not the s y na - 
only of Jews but of ' God-fearers,' evidently a numerous 
and influential section of the community. One of the latter 
was Luke, and it appears that he was present and witnessed 
all that passed on this memorable occasion. The missionaries 
took their places unostentatiously among the worshippers ; 5 
but their fame had already spread, and the Rulers of the 
Synagogue had their eyes upon them. The service proceeded 
after the prescribed order. The Scripture-lessons were 
read. One was from the Law and the other from the 
Prophets, and it appears that the passages for the day were 
the first chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy and the first 

1 For the evidence that Luke belonged not to Syrian but to Pisidian Antioch 
see Append. IV. 

8 Cf . Hieron. Qucest. in Gen. 46 : ' licet plerique tradant Lucam Evangelistam 
ut proselytum Hebraeas literas ignorasse.' 

• Cf. p. 13. 4 Cf. Append. I. 

6 When the Rulers of the Synagogue invited them to speak, they c sent to them ' 
(cf. ver. 15), implying that they sat remote. On the contrary, since sitting was 
the attitude of a Jewish teacher, Dr. John Lightfoot infers from itcddicrav (ver. 14} 
that by previous arrangement with the Rulers they occupied the teachers' seat. 



92 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

chapter of the Book of Isaiah. 1 Then came the event which 
all had been awaiting. It was the custom that, when a 
qualified stranger appeared in a synagogue, he should be 
invited to discourse to the congregation ; 2 and accordingly 
the Rulers sent a message to the visitors inviting them to 
come forward and speak. Paul accepted the office. He 
based his discourse on the passages which had just been 
read and which were still ringing in the worshippers' ears ; 
and Luke has immortalised the scene, not only reproducing 
the sermon, doubtless from his own notes, 3 but portraying 
the preacher's bearing — how he adopted the manner of a 
Greek orator and stood while he spoke instead of sitting 
like a Jewish teacher, and how, with an instinctive and 

ct Ac. xxi. characteristic gesture, he claimed attention at the outset 

4 °" by a wave of his hand. 

His xiii. t6 * Israelites/ said he, ' and you God-fearers, listen. 

sermon. l7 'The God of this people Israel elected our fathers and 

is. i. 2. " brought up " 4 the people during their sojourn in the land 

pt- v. 15, of Egypt, and ' ' with a high arm He led them forth from it," 

i 38. V "' X l8an d for some forty years' time "He carried them like a 

19 nurse 5 in the wilderness," and " put down seven nations " 

in the land of Canaan and " made their land His people's 

20 heritage," 6 all in the space of some four hundred and fifty 

years. 7 And thereafter He gave Judges down to Samuel the 

1 At the present day, doubtless in accordance with ancient usage, these passages 
are prescribed for the same day in the Jewish Lectionary ; and at the commence- 
ment of his discourse Paul employs several striking phrases which occur in them 
(tiipwirev, iTpo(po(f>6py)<r€i>, KaTfKXrjpovd/JLrjffev). The inference is that the passages 
had just been read. 

8 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 95. 8 Cf. Append. IV. 

4 iixpoxxev, not 'exalted' but 'brought up,' as in Is. i. 2 LXX : vloi/s iyfrvytra iced 
Vxf/uxra (cf. li. 18). Israel was not 'exalted' in Egypt ; she was 'humbled.' Her 
bondage was an education. 

6 iTpo<pocj>6pr)<rev AC*E. The variant eTpoirocpdpijaev, 'bore with their 
manners,' is more strongly attested (XBC 2 DHLP Vulg.) ; but the reference to 
Dt. i. 31 is clear, and there the evidence for €Tpo<po(p6pr]<re!> and Tpo<po<poprj<rei is 
overwhelming. 

8 The only N.T. instance of KaraK\i]popop:e?v in the sense of tcXrjpoSoTeiv (T.R.), 
but the usage is frequent in lxx. Cf. Num. xxxiv. 18 ; Dt. i. 38, iii. 28 j Jud. xi. 
24 ; 2 Sam. vii. I ; Jer. iii. 18. 

' 400 years of oppression (cf. Gen. xv. 13; Ac. vii. 6), 40 in the wilderness, 
and the period of conquest — roughly (ws) ten years. The Received Text puts 
is treaty rerp. ko.1 rrevr. after Kal /xerd ravra, making the time of the Judges 450 
years. This differs widely from 1 Ki. vi. I, but it accords with the traditional 
Jewish chronology (cf. Jos. Ant. vm. iii. 1) : Solomon began the building of the 



THE FIRST MISSION 93 

a 1 Prophet. And next they requested a King, and God gave them 
Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty 

22 years. 1 And He removed him, and raised them up David as 
King; and to him He also bore this testimony: "I have Ps. lxxxix. 
found David," the son of Jesse, "a man according to My £?/ lSam - 
heart," who " will perform all My pleasure." is. xiiv'. 28. 

23 ' From this man's seed according to promise God has brought 

24 Israel a Saviour — Jesus. Ere His appearance on the scene John 
had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of 

25 Israel. And while John was accomplishing his career, he would 

say : " What you suppose me to be, I am not. 2 No, look you, Cf. Jo. i. 
One is coming after rne whose sandal I am not worthy to loose." J 9- 28 - 

26 ' Brothers, sons of Abraham's race and the God-fearers among 

you, to you 3 has " the word " of this salvation " been sent forth." Ps.cvii. 20. 

27 For the dwellers in Jerusalem and their rulers by ignoring this 
word fulfilled also by their judgment the voices of the Prophets 

28 which are read every Sabbath ; 4 and, though they found no 
reason for death, they requested Pilate that He should be 

29 executed. And when they had carried out everything that is 
written of Him, they took Him down from the Tree and 

36 laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead. 

31 And He appeared in the course of a good many days to those who 
had gone up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem ; and these are 

32 at this hour His witnesses to the people. And we are telling you 

33 good tidings of the promise made to the fathers — that God has 
fulfilled this for our children 5 by raising Jesus, as it is written 
also in the second Psalm : " Thou art My Son : this day have I 

34 begotten Thee." And that He raised Him from the dead never 
more to turn to corruption, He has thus declared : "I will give is. lv. 3. 

35 Thee the holy promises to David, the faithful promises." And 
therefore also in another Psalm He says : " Thou wilt not give Ps. xvi. 10. 



Temple in the fourth year of his reign, 592 years after the Exodus. Deduct 
(1) 40 years in the wilderness, (2) 25 of Joshua's leadership (cf. Jos. Ant. v. i. 29), 
(3) 40 of Saul's reign (cf. Ac. xiii. 21), (4) 40 of David's (cf. 1 Ki. ii. 11), and 
(5) the first four of Solomon's ; and there remain, as the period of the Judges, 
443 or ' some 450 ' years. 

1 Cf. Jos. Ant. vi. xiv. 9. The duration of Saul's reign is nowhere stated in 
O. T. 

* Reading ri ifih virovoure etvcu, ovk elfil iydi and taking ri in the sense of 6' 
(cf. Mk. xiv. 36). 

8 vfitp CEHLP Vulg., 'you Hellenists and Gentiles.' 

4 Otherwise : ' by ignoring it and the voices of the prophets they condemned 
Him and fulfilled them.' 

6 rots t£kvoi$ t)h<2v >$ABC*D Vulg. Observe the Apostle's solicitude to include 
both sections of His audience, Jews and Gentiles equally. He says 'the (not 
"our") fathers' and 'our (not "their") children.' The promise was a common 
heritage. 



94 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



i Ki. 

ii. 10. 



An inter- 
ruption, 



36 Thine Holy One to see corruption." For David in his own 
generation served the will of God and fell asleep, 1 and was laid 

37 to his fathers and saw corruption ; but He whom God raised 
did not see corruption. 

38 ' Therefore be it recognised by you, brothers, that through 

39 Him is remission of sins being announced to you, and from all 
the unrighteousness from which you could not be absolved in 
terms of the Law of Moses, every one who has faith is absolved 
in Him/ 

Here, like Stephen in his defence before the Sanhedrin, 
he was interrupted. The historical review at the outset of 
his discourse would gratify the patriotic sentiment of his 
Jewish hearers, and he was careful from time to time to 
appeal also to the God-fearers in the congregation. And 
thus for a while his argument commanded unanimous 
approval ; but when he came to speak of the crime of the 
rulers and people of the Holy City and its condemnation by 
the Resurrection, the narrower sort of his Jewish hearers, 
already suspicious, took offence. He marked their frowns 
and their mutterings, and closed with a solemn warning : 

40 ' Beware, therefore, lest the sequel be what is written in the 
prophets : 

Hab. i. 5. 41 " See, ye despisers, and wonder, and vanish away ; 
for that I am working a work in your days, 
a work which ye will in no wise believe if one declare it 
to you." ' 



Breach 
with the 
syna- 
gogue. 



Silence ensued. 2 The congregation sat awe-stricken, until 
Paul and Barnabas, desirous evidently of avoiding a rencontre 
with the Rulers, rose to take their departure ; and then 
from all sides came entreaties that they would return the 
next Sabbath and resume the argument. 8 The proposal was 



x So Vulg., Bez., R.V. Others (Calv., A.V.) take y&€$ as object of 
vinipeT-ficras ('having served his own generation') and construe rr} tov Qeov (iov\rj 
cither with vTyperrjaas ('having served by the will of God ') or with iKoi/t^Orf ('by 
the will of God fell asleep '). 

3 After ver. 41 Cod. Bez. (D) has real i<rtyi}ffav t 'and they kept silence.' 
8 XABCDEI Vulg., Chrys. : i&bvTuv Sk aJjrCbv irapctcaXovv, 'and as they (Paul 
and Barnabas) were going out, they (the congregation) besought.' If hcto£6 
has here its ordinary signification ' between,' then els to neraty vaPfiarov means 
'on the intervening Sabbath.' Two explanations have been suggested. (1) Since 
cafifiarov or ff&pfSara denoted not only 'Sabbath' but 'week' (cf. Lk. xviii. 12), 
Dr. John Lightfoot understands that they were requested to attend the weekday 



THE FIRST MISSION 95 

distasteful to the Rulers, and they abruptly dismissed the 
assemblage. But they could not thus stifle the interest 
which had been evoked, and a number of the Jews and the 
God-fearers l followed the missionaries and professed their 
faith. With the impulsiveness which characterised not only 
the Antiochenes but their neighbours of southern Galatia, Cf. Gal. i, 
and which was demonstrated alike by their initial enthu- w. l ['^j% 
siasm and their subsequent defection, they would fain have 
been baptised forthwith ; 2 but Paul and Barnabas restrained 
their impetuosity, and meanwhile ' talked with them and 
urged them to continue in the grace of God/ And the event 
justified their caution. Throughout the week the Gospel was 
the general talk, 3 and the interest even of the Gentile populace 
was excited. The whole city was eager to hear it, and on 
the ensuing Sabbath the synagogue was besieged by an 
enormous crowd. The jealousy of the Jews was aroused. 
Even those who had been favourably disposed resented the 
idea of the Gentiles being put on an equality with themselves ; 
and when the Apostle resumed his discourse, he was greeted 
with interruptions. Objections were raised, and when these 
were answered, ribaldries against the Crucified succeeded, 
until the missionaries could endure it no longer and took 
their predetermined course. They had, as was fit, presented 
the Gospel in the first instance to the Jews, and since these had 
rejected it, they abandoned them and turned to the Gentiles. 

They quitted the synagogue, and thenceforth addressed Successful 
themselves to the general populace. And their message among the 
was cordially received. It pleased the Gentiles that their ^puii e cc . 

meetings on Monday and Thursday (cf. The Days of His Fleshy p. 94). 
Similarly (2) Grotius, who would read aapp&Twv for a&fifiaTov, medio tempore inter 
duo sabbata, 'in the interval between the two Sabbaths.' /iera£tf, however, 
meant also 'next after.' Cf. Jos. De Bell. Jud. v. iv. 2: Aavldov re ical 
2o\o/xwi'05, £rt Si tuv /iera£i> roiruv §a<ri\iwv. Contra Apion. i. 21. Thus 
rb ficTa& ffdpparov is 'the next Sabbath,' and so Cod. Bez. (D) reads #7?$ and 
one cursive £ti6v. 

1 tuv o-efioixhwv rpofftjX^Tuv (ver. 43) is impossible. It combines two distinct 
classes — the God-fearers or worshippers (cf. p. 13) and the proselytes. The 
distinction was forgotten, and TptxrrjK&rwv is manifestly an erroneous gloss on 
twv aefiofitvbiv. 

• After Bapv&fiq. (ver. 43) 137 Syr p c* add d&oOi'm /3airncr07jvat, 'claiming to 
be baptised.' 

• After ver. 43 Cod. Bez. (D) and Syr. Vers, add : ' And it came to pass that 
the Word of God spread all over the city,' 



96 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

cause had been espoused against Jewish insolence, and 
there were not a few who were animated by a holier senti- 
ment. Their hearts had been touched, and they welcomed 
the Saviour's grace. Nor was the work confined to the city. 
Visitors from the surrounding country heard the message of 
salvation, and they carried the glad tidings with them to 
their homes until all the Phrygian District had shared the 
benediction. 
* Expulsion So signal a triumph exasperated the Jews, and they 
sionaries 3 " resorted to violence. Among the ' God-fearers ' who had 
£ on ? made the synagogue their spiritual home were some ladies 
of good station. They were apparently the wives of 
magistrates, and they lent themselves to the malignant 
designs of the Jewish leaders. The latter instigated an 
attack upon Paul and Barnabas, and those ladies prejudiced 
their husbands' minds and procured the condemnation of 
the missionaries and their expulsion from the District as 
disturbers of the peace, 
iconium. It would be about the end of October when they were 
driven from Antioch ; 1 and, quitting the Phrygian District, 
they journeyed, to Iconium, the metropolis of the Lycaonian 
District, upwards of eighty miles east by south of Antioch. 
Formerly the frontier town of Phrygia, 2 it had for admini- 
strative convenience been included by the Romans in 
Lycaonia ; 3 but the citizens retained their ancient language 
and clung to their ancient traditions, and persisted in regard- 
ing themselves as Phrygians. 4 And indeed they had reason 
for historic pride. Iconium was, like Damascus, a city of 
immemorial antiquity. It was associated with the name of 
the Phrygian king Nannacus, who was reputed to have 
reigned before the Flood and was immortalised by the Greek 
proverb * since Nannacus/ denoting extreme age. 5 Though 

1 Cf. Append. I. 

^ Xen. Anab. I. ii. 19 : eh , Ik6viov ) ttjs $pvyia$ irb\iv eVx^Tijv. 

8 Cf. Strabo, 568 ; Cic. Ad Fam. xv. iv. 2 ; Plin. Nat. Hist. V. 25. 

* Cf. Ramsay, Church in Rom. Emj>., p. 39. 

* Suid. : ret airb 'Navv&Kov' eiri twv ciri wa\ai6Tr}Ti davfiafr/xipuv. N&vihxkqi 
yap $pvyuv f3aai\ei>s irpb rdv rod Aevnaklwvos xp<$"wv. Another proverb was ' the 
tears of Nannacus,' ra Navvd/cov /cXai^tro^at (Suid.), referring to his unavailing 
lamentation and supplication on learning of the approaching disaster of the 
Flood. 



THE FIRST MISSION 97 

fallen from its traditional greatness in the Apostle's day, it 
remained a fine and prosperous city. It lay on the southern 
margin of a wilderness, the dreary upland of the Axylus, cold 
and barren, and so waterless that its only inhabitants were 
wild asses and a breed of rough-haired sheep which throve 
there surprisingly and yielded a rich profit to their keepers, 
who obtained water by sinking wells, accounted the deepest 
in the world, and occupied the few towns in the country, the 
chief being Sovatra, where water was so scarce that it was 
bought and sold. But nature had dealt more kindly with 
Iconium. Behind it to the west lay the highlands which 
reached up to the ridge of the Taurus ; and thence flowed a 
multitude of streams which fertilised the environs of the 
town and, having no outlet to the sea, lost themselves in a 
vast expanse of marshes. 1 

The Royal Road, constructed by Augustus, ran from successful 
Antioch to Lystra, passing through Misthia and skirting mlnistr y- 
Lake Caralis ; and Paul and Barnabas would travel by that 
easy highway for some five and thirty miles, and then, at a 
point two or three miles beyond Misthia, they would diverge 
from it and follow the less commodious road which led thence 
to Iconium. 2 On their arrival they proceeded precisely as 
they had done at Antioch, 3 and they had a much similar 
experience. They visited the synagogue, and Paul's 
preaching 4 evoked an immediate response, winning a large 
number both of the Jews and of their Gentile adherents. So 
striking a success displeased the Jewish leaders, and they set 
themselves to counteract it. They would naturally, like 
their confreres at Antioch, have raised opposition in the 
synagogue, and thus have driven the missionaries to withdraw 
from it and devote themselves exclusively to the Gentiles ; 
but this was impracticable by reason of the number of the 
Jewish converts. And so a conference was held between 
the religious and civil authorities of the Jewish community, Machina- 
the Rulers of the Synagogue and the Archons, as they were Jh e n | e ^ isfe 

istrabc.,568. rulers * 

* Cf. Act. Paul, et Thecl. 3. 

* Ac. xiv. 1 : Karb. to auro, not simul, 'at the same time,' 'together' (Wetst., 
A. V., R.V.), but similiter, 'in the same manner' (Blass). 

4 In xiv. 1 for ' they ' {avrovs) Cod. Bez. (D) has ' he ' {a.i>Tov). Paul was always 
foremost, and the preaching was his office. 
G 



98 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

designated— -the chiefs of the senate or civil court which 
had been established by Augustus in each Hellenistic com- 
munity for the administration of its internal affairs. 1 The 
issue was that the}' succeeded in poisoning the minds of 
the Gentiles and exciting them against the missionaries and 
their followers. 2 The animosity, however, was short-lived. 
' The Lord quickly gave peace/ and they continued their 
ministry throughout the winter 3 with undaunted courage, 
reinforced by miraculous tokens of the Lord's presence and 
co-operation. 

^Tbbi 7 ^ ^ e wn ^ e ' however, they were harassed by the 
machinations of the Jewish authorities, and a dangerous 
situation gradually developed. The citizens were ranged in 
two hostile factions according as their sympathies lay with 
the Jewish rulers or with the missionaries. It would have 
mattered little at Antioch, a Roman colony where just laws 
prevailed and order was resolutely maintained ; but at 
Iconium with its native magistracy that security was lacking, 
and at length, probably in the early summer, the partisan 
animosity flared up, and a mob of Jews and Gentiles, in- 
stigated by the Jewish Archons, made a savage assault on 
Paul and Barnabas, shouting abuse and pelting them with 
stones. 

Flight from They escaped and fled from the town, accompanied 

Iconium. j r r 

1 Phil. In Flacc. 10. Cf. Schttrer, II. ii. pp. 63 ff., 243 ff. 

* The narrative here (xiv. 1-6) is somewhat perplexing. Ver. 3 seems an 
interruption, introducing an extended and successful ministry in the midst of a 
fierce persecution, between its outbreak and its violent consummation. It is 
tempting to conjecture either that the verse is an interpolation or that it has been 
misplaced and should stand between ver. 1 and ver. 2 ; but the reading of ver. 2 
in Cod. Bez. (D) and Syriac Version elucidates the passage : ol 5t apx^vv dycayoi twv 
'lovdaiuv ko.1 oi ApxovTes rijs ffvvayiayrjs (Syr. om. tt)s away.) iirfiyayov avroU 
(Syr. om. avroh) Suayfibv Kara t<2v dtKalwv (Syr. om. k. t. 5ik.) teal eK&Kwav rkt 
ypxtXas tQv idvdv Kara rQv dde\<p(vv' 6 dt Kvpios £5<aKev rax^> dp-qvr}v y 'But the 
Jews' Rulers of the Synagogue and the Archons brought on a persecution and 
made the souls of the Gentiles evil affected against the brethren ; but the Lord 
quickly gave peace.' Thus the course of events was : an unsuccessful attempt by 
the Jewish religious and civil authorities to rouse the Gentiles against the Apostles 
(ver. 2) ; prosecution by the latter of a successful ministry despite the persistent 
animosity of the Jewish authorities (ver. 3) ; creation of two parties in the town 
through Jewish machinations (ver. 4) ; their collision, achieving the end which the 
Jewish authorities had been seeking all the while (vers. 5, 6). 

* Cf. Append. I. 



THE FIRST MISSION 99 

by some of their supporters, who were, no less than them- 
selves, objects of resentment. 1 It was a magisterial judg- 
ment which had expelled them from Antioch, and it had 
excluded them not merely from the city but from the 
Phrygian District. Now, however, they were fugitives from 
a riot, and they were safe so soon as they were clear of the 
town. The Lycaonian District remained open to them, and 
they were free to settle where they would within its bounds. 
This determined their course. The Iconian fugitives dis- 
persed over the District and preached the Gospel, but this 
was impracticable for Paul and Barnabas. It was only in the 
towns that the common Greek was spoken, and since the 
rural peasantry knew only their Lycaonian vernacular, they 
would not have understood the missionaries. 2 And thus it 
was necessary that the latter on their flight from Iconium 
should betake themselves to another town, and they naturally 
turned to the nearest. 

This was Lystra, which lay fully twenty miles to the Lystra. 
south, occupying an eminence some 3780 feet above sea- 
level on the northern bank of a stream which flows through 
a pleasant valley and loses itself in the marshes eastward. 3 
Originally a place of small importance, it had acquired some 
consequence under the imperial regime, inasmuch as it was 
the terminus of the Royal Road from Antioch and, like 
Antioch, a military colony, the eastmost of the chain of 
fortified towns which Augustus had established for the 
repression of the brigands of Pisidia and Isauria. Lystra 
was proud of her new position, 4 nevertheless she remained 
undistinguished. She had little commerce, and conse- 

x Cod. Bez. (D) illuminates the situation by amplifying ver. 7 thus : k&k*i 
e6ayye\i{6fjLevoi 7}<rav y koX iKtvfjdt) 8\ov rd irXrjdos iirl rrj SiSaxv ' 5e IlaDXos Aral 
BapfdjSas SUrpifiov iv Kicrpois, 'and there they were preaching the Gospel, 
and the whole populace {i.e. of the District) was moved at the teaching ; but 
Paul and Barnabas were employed at Lystra.' Here two distinct ministries are 
implied, that of the Apostles at Lystra and that of their followers in the surrounding 
District 

" Cf. p. 7. 

8 The site was identified in 1885 close to the modern Khatyn Serai on the 
evidence of a marble pedestal dedicated to Augustus and inscribed divum 
aug(ustum)/colonia jul(ia) felix gemina/lustra/consecravit/d(ecreto) 
d(ecurionum). 

4 Cf. Ramsay, Church in Rom. £m/>., p. 50. 



ioo LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Cf.Ac.xiv. quently she had no Jewish community and no synagogue. 

Her populace was composed of the Roman garrison and the 
cf. vers, aboriginal Lycaonians who preserved their native language 

and worship, though they spoke also the Common Greek and 

could understand the preaching of the missionaries. 
a pious (Though there was no Jewish community, there was at 

least one Jewish family at Lystra. The mother was a 
cf. 2 Tim. widow 1 named Eunice, and she had a son named Timothy, 

1. K, 111 . I c. J 

a mere lad. 2 Her husband, apparently long deceased, had 
cf. Ac. been a Gentile, and had remained a Gentile all his days, 

xvi. 3. 

since the boy had never been circumcised ; yet, despite her 
loyal acquiescence in the conditions which her marriage 
imposed, she was a devout Jewess, and her hereditary piety 
was confirmed by the gracious presence in the home of her 
aged mother Lois, 3 who aided her in the religious nurture of 
the child and his instruction from his earliest days in the 
Jewish Scriptures. The missionaries would speedily make 
their acquaintance, and it may be that they lodged in that 
peaceful and pious house during their stay at Lystra. In 
any case all the three were won to the Faith, and Timothy 
proved in after years a trusted and efficient coadjutor of 
Paul.) 

Healing of Since there was no synagogue in the town, they addressed 
themselves forthwith to the heathen populace. It was 
difficult to commend the Gospel to pagan hearts, ignorant of 
the hopes and promises which it fulfilled, and it seems to 
have fallen at the outset upon deaf ears. One day, how- 
ever, an opportunity presented itself. Paul was preaching, 

Cf :. Ac - perhaps in the market-place, and he observed one eager 
listener amid the listless throng. He was a helpless cripple, 

1 In Ac. xvi. 1 one cursive has 'IovScu'as xvp a s> while the imperf. virrjpxev 
(ver. 3), 'used to be,' 'had been,' implies, according to Greek usage, that he was 
dead. Had he been still alive, the pres. {vTr&pxei) would have been used. 
Cf. iv. 13. That Timothy belonged to Lystra appears from xvi. 1, where £icei 
must refer to Kvarpav and not to the remoter Aep/S^. In xx. 4 TifiSdeos, being 
so well known, receives no local designation, but the Syriac and Armenian 
Versions have ' Timothy of Lystra.' 

8 Some fifteen years later his 'youth' still handicapped him in his ministry 
(cf. 1 Tim. iv. 12). 

* ^.d/j-firj (2 Tim. i. 5) denoted either a paternal or maternal grandmother (cf. Suid. 
under Tr\dr\ : -q irarpos ?) ix-qrpbs p.r\T'qp), but their mutual sympathy seems to indicate 
that Lois and Eunice were not only mother and daughter but co-religionists. 



in 
n 
form. 



THE FIRST MISSION 101 

and he sat drinking in the good tidings. The wistful face 
appealed to the Apostle, and he recognised an opportunity 
of at once befriending the sufferer and moving the crowd. 
He looked hard at the man and, speaking out that every 
one might hear, he bade him ' stand upright on his feet.' 
Never in his life had the cripple stood or walked, but he 
instinctively obeyed. He sprang up, and not merely stood 
but walked about. 

Instantly the bystanders awoke from their apathy. An The 
amazing thing had happened before their eyes, and they ^kenfor 
diew their own conclusion. In those days it was generally J T eus and . 

J ° J FL.rmes 1 

believed in the heathen world that the gods, when they human 
pleased, descended from heaven and walked the earth in 
human form, conversing with men ; x and that very country 
was the scene where, according to a pleasant fable, such a 
theophany had been vouchsafed. It was told how Zeus and 
Hermes had appeared in the guise of needy strangers and, 
repulsed from a thousand doors, had been welcomed in 
their poor hut by a couple of aged peasants, Philemon and 
Baucis, at the village of Tyriseum on the borders of Phrygia 
and Lycaonia. 2 Hence it was perhaps that the worship of 
Zeus and Hermes prevailed in Lycaonia : they were pre- 
eminently ' the gods ' of the country. 3 The story would be 
familiar to the people of Lystra, and it was very natural that 
on witnessing the miracle they should leap to the conclusion 
that the wonder had recurred. The cry was raised in their 
vernacular : ' The gods are come down to us in the likeness 
of men ! ' and they took the silent and benevolent Barnabas 
for Zeus, ' the King of gods and men/ and Paul the preacher 
for Hermes, ' the Interpreter and Prophet of the Gods/ 4 

Mindful of the reproach which their ancestors had un- Prepara- 
wittingly incurred, they incontinently dispersed to publish fi° c r ej sacn " 
the wonderful tidings and prepare a fitting welcome for the 

1 Cf. Horn. Od. xvn. 485-7 ; Cic. De Harusp., 28. 

2 Cf. Ovid, Met. viii. 611 ff. Tyaneius, the common reading in 1. 719, is 
impossible, since Tyana was in Cappadocia. The MSS. vary ( Trimchis, Thineyus, 
Thyrneuis, etc. ), and Tyrieius or Tyriahis is probable. 

8 Cf. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, p. 280, n. I. 

4 Cf. Lucian, Somn. 2 : 'l&pfiod AaAjoTdrou /ecu XoyuoTdrov BeQv &,TrdvTcav. 
Pseudolog. 24: 6 \6ytos "Ep/xTJs. Iamblich. De Myster. ALgypt. (ad init.) : debs 6 
tuv \6ywv riyefxwv 6 "E/j/atJs. Hor. Od. I. x. I. 



102 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

celestial visitors. Ignorant of the Lycaonian speech, the 
missionaries had not understood the outcry, and would 
wonder what the commotion meant ; and when they were 
left standing alone, they betook themselves to their abode. 
Meanwhile the people hurried to the Temple of Zeus, which, 
according to custom, 1 was situated outside the city ; and 
when the priest learned what had transpired, he hastened to 
celebrate the occasion. He summoned his attendants, 2 
and they brought oxen and wreathed the victims' horns with 
garlands, 3 and drove them into the city until they reached 
the gateway of the house where the divine visitants had 
their abode. 4 There they erected an altar and prepared to 
offer sacrifice. 
T he , , It was only then that the missionaries realised what was 

Apostles . /t^i t -i • 

protest, afoot. They were aghast and, expressing their abhorrence 
cf. Gen. of the blasphemy in oriental fashion by rending their gar- 
Mt. xxvi. ' ments, they rushed out and vigorously protested. They 
65> assured the priests and the deluded crowd that they were not 

gods but mere mortals, and their errand was nothing else 
than to rescue them from the vanity of idolatry and turn 
their hearts to the Living God. And they implored them to 
desist from their wild purpose and return home. 5 
Popular The remonstrance succeeded. There was no sacrifice, 
ment. and the crowd dispersed crestfallen. The incident, however, 
had an untoward result. Enthusiasm gave place to resent- 
ment. The protest against idolatry angered the priesthood, 
and the populace were aggrieved at the exposure of their 
superstitious delusion. The situation was not only dis- 
couraging but dangerous. A mere spark would suffice to 
enkindle a conflagration, and this was supplied when a 
Fanned by company of Jews from Antioch and Iconium appeared on 

Jewish 
visitors. 

1 Cf. Wetstein. 

* Cod. Bez. (D) has (ver. 13) oi Si It pets , . . kviyKavres . . . ij9e\ov. 

* Cf. Plut. ALtnil. Paul, xxxiii. I. Lucian, De Sacrif. 12 ; De Syr. Dea, 58. 
Eur. Heracl. 529. Aristoph. Pac. 913 ; Av. 893. Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 4. 
Verg. sEn. v. 366. 

* «ri toi>s TrvXQvas (ver. 13), neither the gates of the city (Blass) nor those of 
the temple (Ramsay) but the gateway of the house (cf. xii. 13) — ante fores adium 
in quibus Paulus et Barnabas diversabatur (Grotius). 

6 To ver. 18 numerous authorities add dXXA iropcfcffdai tuaerw els r& t5ta (cf* 
Jo. xix. 27). 



THE FIRST MISSION 103 

the scene. 1 To the present day at the season of harvest, 
which on those cool uplands falls about the end of August, 
merchants from the neighbouring towns visit Lystra in 
order to purchase grain ; 2 and that was probably the errand 
of those Jews from Iconium and Antioch. They found Paul 
discoursing in the market-place, and recognised him. Their 
animosity was unabated, and they denounced him as an 
impostor and asserted that his teaching was ' all lies.' The 
bystanders were easily roused, and they pelted him with 
stones. When a similar assault was made upon him at Paul 
Iconium, he had evaded it ; but now he was hemmed in by stone ' 
the crowd and there was no escape. 3 He was struck down 
and lay senseless, to all appearance dead. It was a lawless 
outrage, and when the perpetrators saw what they had 
done and considered the penal consequences, they took 
alarm, and in the hope of concealing their crime they 
dragged away their victim's body and deposited it outside 
the town and left it there. 

It was now evening, 4 and the Apostle's friends sought the His resu* 
place ; and as they mournfully surrounded his lifeless form, CItatlon - 
they received a joyful surprise. It proved that he was not 
dead but merely stunned, and he presently revived. 5 He 
had sustained no mortal injury, but he was sorely bruised, and 
indeed he bore the scars all his daj^s. Flight was impossible cf. Gal. 
for him : nor indeed was it necessary, since his assailants were V1, I7 ' 
apprehensive of being called to account by the magistrates 

1 The text of ver. 19 is thus amplified by several authorities : 8taTpifi6vTo>y 8$ 
avrwv teal SiSaaxduruv iKei iirrfkdav tipcs 'IouScuoi dirb 'Ikoviov Kal 'Avrioxcias' Kal 
8ia\eyofi£v(i)v avruv irappT]<ria tiruaav tovs 8x\ovs diroaTrjuai dx' avrcDv, Xtyovrcs 
8ti ov8kv aXydts Xeyovciv dXXd iravra ^evSovrai' Kal Xidaaavres, k.t.X., 'And while 
they stayed and were teaching there, some Jews arrived from Iconium and 
Antioch ; and while they were reasoning boldly, they persuaded the multitudes to 
withdraw from them, saying that nothing they said was true but all lies. And 
having stoned,' etc. 

2 Ramsay, Church in Rom. Emp., p. 69. 

8 He was actually stoned (Ait'd^ai/rey), whereas at Iconium the rabble had 
merely 'flung stones' (KidopoXrjaai), Hence in his subsequent catalogue of 
1 hair-breadth escapes ' he enumerates only one stoning (2 Cor. xi. 25). 

4 In ver. 20 the Sahidic Version has, ' and when the discrples surrounded him 
and evening was come.' 

6 A legend-monger would inevitably have represented his resuscitation as a 
miraculous resurrection, and Luke's sobriety here accredits the previous narrative 
of the healing of the cripple 



io4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Derbe. 



and would not venture to molest him further. And io 
under cover of the darkness he painfully made his way back 
to the town and crept home to his lodging. 

Refreshed by the night's repose he was able on the 
morrow to set forth with Barnabas from the unfriendly town. 
They directed their steps south-eastward and travelled to 
Derbe. The precise site of this town has never been identi- 
fied, but it lay at much the same elevation as Iconium ' on 
the flanks of Isauria/ near the Kingdom of Antiochus. 1 
It was the frontier town of the Province of Galatia, and this 
constituted its chief if not its sole importance. It was a 
customs station, a receiving house for merchandise, and a 
resting place for travellers. 

It appears from the meagreness of the record that their 
sojourn at Derbe was uneventful, yet it was neither unpleasant 
nor unprofitable. They encountered no enmity and suffered 
no persecution. The town must have seemed a quiet haven 
cf.2Tim. after their turbulent experiences at Antioch, Iconium, and 
Lystra ; but, peaceful as it was, their ministry was crowned 
with large success. The record is brief but eloquent : ' they 
evangelised the city, and they won numerous disciples.' 
And one of these was Gaius, who in after days proved a 
serviceable comrade of the Apostle. 



A peaceful 
and suc- 
cessful 
ministry. 



in. ii. 



Cf. Ac. 
xx. 4. 



IV 



Ac. xiv. 
21^-26. 



THE HOMEWARD JOURNEY 



Return 

through 

Galatia. 



It was in the month of September that the missionaries 
had come to Derbe, and it would be midwinter ere they had 
accomplished so large a ministry. They had reached the 
eastern limit of the Province, and it was now time that thev 
should turn homeward. The direct route to Syrian Antioch 
ran through the Kingdom of Antiochus and crossed the 
Taurus by the Cilician Gates ; but it was impracticable at 
that season when the snow blocked the mountain-passage. 
Nor is it likely that, even had it been practicable, they 

1 Strabo, 569. Cf. Ramsay, Hist. Comm. on Gal., pp. 228 ff. ; Cities of 
St. Paul, pp. 385 fF. 



THE FIRST MISSION 105 

would have followed it. In each of the three cities where 
they had preached in the course of their eastward progress, 
their ministry had been abruptly terminated. They had 
been violently expelled, and had left their converts not 
merely discouraged but uninstructed and unconsolidated ; 
and there was imminent danger of their falling away from 
the Faith. It was imperative that this peril should be 
averted. Wherever in the course of his ministry the Apostle 
preached and planted the Gospel, he never counted his work Cf.Tit.is 
complete until he had organised a Church and ordained 
Presbyters charged with the offices of administration and 
instruction. And therefore he determined to return with 
Barnabas by the way they had come, and revisit the converts 
in each city. They ran little risk in readventuring on those 
scenes of violence ; for they would engage in no public 
propaganda. The Christian communities were now their 
exclusive concern ; and even if the popular resentment still 
survived, it would receive no provocation. 

And so it came to pass. They retraced their steps Revisita- 
through Southern Galatia and revisited successively the converts. 16 
towns of Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. In each they 
counselled their converts and confirmed them in the faith, 
exhorting them to steadfastness whatever trials they might 
encounter ; and finally they had Presbyters elected and 
solemnly ordained them to the sacred office. 1 At Antioch 
they had the gladness of meeting again with Luke, ' the 
beloved physician ' and the future historian ; and he has Col. iv. 14. 
betrayed his presence at this point by introducing a personal 
touch into the narrative. The missionaries, he says, ' con- 
firmed the souls of the disciples, exhorting to continuance in 
the Faith, and that we must through many afflictions enter 
into the Kingdom of God.' 2 

Antioch was their last station in the Province of Galatia, progress to 
and their route thence ran southward to the coast. It was the coast 

1 x ei P<>Tov€Lv (ver. 23), properly 'elect by show of hands./ accurately defines the 
democratic procedure of the Apostolic Church (cf. 2 Cor. viii. 19). The term, 
however, was also used vaguely in the sense of 'elect,' 'appoint.' Cf. Ac. x. 41 ; 
-i^sop. Fad. 200 b : rod 5k Aibs ptWoPTos x eL P 0T0V VO'O'i- atVois rbv fiacrikia. In 
Fab. 44 it has its proper sense of ' popular election ' : iv cwddcp rdv a\6y(av feup 
TrldrjKos 6pxn<y<iiJ.evos kolI eidoKi/x^aa^ /3a<rt\ei)i vir' avrQv ix^porov^Orj. 

2 Cf. Append. IV. 



io6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Adada, 



Passage 
of the 
Taurus. 



2 Cor. xi. 
25- 

Perga. 



Attaleia. 



the road they had travelled so painfully on their upward 
journey about a year and a half previously. They had then 
made what haste they could, preaching nowhere by the way ; 
but now they retrieved the lost opportunity. They preached 
as they went. 1 The chief town which they touched in their 
passage through Pisidia, was Adada, 2 and it appears that 
they evangelised it. At all events its modern representative 
is named after the Apostle Kara Bavlo, and about a mile to 
the south of it stand the ruins of an ancient church. Pro- 
ceeding thence, they addressed themselves to the passage of 
the Taurus ; and this was no slight ordeal. It was spring- 
time, and the torrents, fed by the melting snow, would be 
running in full flood ; and it was doubtless a reminiscence 
of that grim adventure when, in recounting his * hair-breadth 
'scapes ' some six years later, Paul mentioned ' dangers from 
rivers.' Achieving the perilous passage, they descended 
into the Province of Pamphylia and reached the city of Perga. 
It was there that Paul had sickened in the midsummer of 
47 ; and now they effect the design which had been so pain- 
fully yet, as they had discovered, so wisely overruled : they 
1 spoke the word at Perga.' They made no long stay ; for, 
warned by experience, they would be anxious to escape 
from Pamphylia ere the heat of summer. The river Cestrus 
was navigable as high as Perga, and as it had been the 
destination of the ship which conveyed them from Cyprus, 
so they might have sailed thence on their homeward 
voyage ; but they were fain to lose no opportunity. And 
therefore they travelled to the seaport of Attaleia ; and after 
preaching there 3 they embarked for Syrian Antioch, not 
later than the month of June in the year 49. 



1 On 8ie\66vTes tt]v JlctnSiav (ver. 24), cf. p. 83. 
*"A8aSa (Ptol. v. v. 8), 'A8a8dT V (Strabo, 570). 
3 After 'ArTaXeiav (ver. 25) Cod. Bez. (D) and several other authoritiei add 



THE COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM Ac . xlv . 

27, 28 ; 

(~~* 1 " " 

* How can the Lord call Egypt his people, and Assyria the work of his ^i Ac. 
hands, and all the Gentiles (who for number are as the flocks of Kedar, xv. 1-32. 
and the abundance of the sea) the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his 
Christ, if you number all such as your charity cannot judge converts 
among Heathens and Pagans, who have not a visible claim and interest 
in Christ ? We look upon this visible Church, though black and spotted, 
as the hospital and guest-house of sick, halt, maimed and withered, over 
which Christ is Lord-physician and Master ; and we would wait upon those 
that are not yet in Christ, as our Lord waited upon us and you both.' 

Samuel Rutherfurd, Lett. 11. 68. 

It was midsummer of the year 49 when Paul and Barnabas Back at 

reached Antioch, and they at once reported at a general Antloch 

assembly of the Church how they had fared in the prosecution 

of their mission. They had not come to stay ; for the 

world was wide, and they had only begun the task of winning 

the Gentiles, and they contemplated a second mission. It 

was, however, impossible for them to embark upon it 

immediately. They needed a season of repose after their 

labours, especially Paul who, despite his sickness, had borne 

the chief burden. The summer would be gone ere he was 

restored to vigour, and travel was difficult in the winter. 

Thus it came to pass that they ' wore away no little time ' The feei- 

at Antioch. Nor was it idly spent ; for they found them- jefusaiem, 

selves involved in a grave and bitter controversy. A report 

of their mission had been conveyed to Jerusalem. Indeed 

intelligence of their doings in South Galatia must already 

have travelled thither. Jews from Pisidian Antioch would 

attend the Passover in the spring of 48, and they would 

publish the story of the rupture between the Apostles and 

the Synagogue ; and at each succeeding feast Galatian 

worshippers would bring tidings in no friendly spirit. Their 

activities would be the talk of the city, and the accounts 

would be eagerly canvassed in the Church. The Twelve and 

107 



io8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Cf. viii. 
14 ; xi. 22. 



Peter's 
f iendly 
visit to 
A;,tioch. 



Judaistic 
dissatis- 
faction. 



Deputa- 
tion to 
Antioch. 

Cf. Gal. ii. 
12. 



Cf. Ac. xv. 

24. 

Insistence 
o.i circum- 
cision. 



most of their followers recognised that the Galatian move- 
ment was a legitimate issue of the agreement in the summer 
of 46 ; * and on the return of the missionaries they followed 
their accustomed procedure by appointing a deputy to visit 
Antioch and investigate the situation. 2 

The deputy was Peter ; and on reaching the Gentile 
capital and conferring with Paul and Barnabas he not only 
approved of their work but associated unreservedly with 
the Church. The Antiochene Christians were mostly 
Gentiles. They were uncircumcised, and they disregarded 
the Jewish rite of ceremonial ablution of the hands before 
eating ; 3 yet the Jewish Apostle joined them at table, 
oblivious of the intolerable pollution which, in Jewish eyes, 
he thereby contracted. 

Meanwhile the Pharisaic party in the Church at Jerusalem 
were grievously dissatisfied. They still cherished the dis- 
like which they had expressed at the Conference in 46 to the 
admission of the Gentiles without the imposition of the 
Mosaic Law ; and they were shocked by the report of the 
Galatian mission. They would have had it condemned, 
and in view of his declared attitude the appointment of Peter 
as deputy to the Antiochene Church accentuated their 
disquietude. It appears that there was one of their number 
who took the lead and organised an active opposition ; 4 and 
it was resolved that representatives of the party should 
proceed to Antioch. They went on their own authority, 
but they professed to represent James, the Lord's brother. 
It was indeed true that he was the head of Jewish Chris- 
tianity, and he had a natural tenderness for Jewish scrupu- 
losity ; but when they claimed his approval in their present 
action, they did him wrong, and he subsequently repudiated 
the imputation. 

On reaching Antioch they promptly threw down the 
gauntlet, and startled the Church by the declaration : 

1 Cf. P . 75. 

* On the historical position of Gal. ii. II ff. cf. Append. I. 

* Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 244. 

4 In Gal. ii. 12 for irpb rod yap i\de?u nuas some Latin MSS. have frius enim 
guam venisset quidam, 'before a certain man had come,' while for 'rfkdov NBD*FG 
read ffkdev, 'he came,' which Origen refers to James, supposing him to have 
visited Antioch. 



THE COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM 109 

' Unless you be circumcised after the custom of Moses, you 
cannot be saved.' It was a blunt denial of the Christianity 
of the Antiochenes. Most of them were converts from 
heathenism, and they had been admitted to the Church's 
fellowship on the sole ground of faith in Christ. They had 
never been required to accept the Jewish Law and observe 
its ceremonies. They were uncircumcised, and therefore 
they were still heathen and still unsaved. 

The visitors maintained their position stoutly, and they piausibi- 
would have no difficulty in adducing arguments which seemed ar s uments 
prima facie incontrovertible. The question was whether the 
Lord had ever abrogated the ancient Law ; and they would 
appeal to His studious adherence to it in the days of His 
flesh — His insistence on submitting to the Baptism of John ml in. 15. 
in order that He might ' fulfil all righteousness ' ; His declara- 
tion that He ' had not come to pull down the Law but to v. 17, 18. 
complete it,' and that ' until heaven and earth passed away, 
no jot or tittle would pass away from the Law until every- 
thing came to pass ' ; and His direction to the young Ruler 
that ' if he would enter into life, he must keep the command- xix. 17. 
ments.' And hence they would conclude triumphantly that 
so far from abrogating the Law He had asserted its permanent 
obligation. It was indeed an illegitimate inference, pro- 
ceeding on a narrow interpretation ; yet it would seem 
irrefragable. And the zeal of its advocates would carry 
conviction. They were bigots, but they were honestly 
persuaded that the historic faith was at stake ; and they 
would taunt Peter and Paul and Barnabas with disowning 
the traditions of their fathers and bartering away their 
sacred heritage. 

It had always been a foible of Peter, an infirmity of his Vaciiia- 
impulsive and generous nature, that he was easily overborne p^er and 
and shrank from ridicule ; and he was intimidated by those Barnabas. 
blustering Judaists. He remained indeed unconvinced, but xxii. 54-62 
in the interests of peace he was disposed to compromise. 
The observance of the Law was, as even Paul allowed, a 
matter of no moment ; and why not acquiesce in the con- 
tention of those sticklers and let them have their way ? 
And so he bowed to the storm, and withdrew from fellow- 
ship with the Gentile converts and would no longer share 



no LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Paul's 

stout 

resistance. 



Reference 
to Jeru- 
salem. 



their meals. His example was contagious, and it was followed 
by all the Hellenist Christians, even by Barnabas. 

It was a serious situation, threatening a cleavage in the 
Church ; and the disaster was averted by the prompt and 
steadfast courage of Paul. He publicly challenged Peter, 
and charged him with ' play-acting,' assuming a role which 
was not his real character. 1 It was indeed true that legal 
observance was a matter of no moment ; and so long as a 
Jewish Christian recognised that salvation was by faith in 
Christ alone, he might, if he would, continue to practise the 
old rites. But when it was claimed that these were essential 
to salvation, then their repudiation was an imperative duty ; 
and thus Peter's action was disloyalty at once to Christ, to him- 
self, and to his Gentile brethren. From every point of view he 
stood condemned. The protest was unanswerable, and Peter 
responded with his accustomed impetuosity. He ceased his 
1 play-acting ' and came out in his proper character, and his 
example rallied Barnabas and the rest of the Jewish Christians. 

Thus the Judaists were foiled, but they would not 
accept defeat. Antioch was the capital of Gentile Christen- 
dom, and its judgment was, in their view, no impartial 
verdict ; and so they urged that the question should be 
submitted to the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem, and that 
an Antiochene deputation, consisting of Paul and Barnabas 
and several others, should proceed thither. 2 The challenge 
was accepted by the Church, and it was not unwelcome to 
Paul. It was no absolute reference to the decision of the 
Twelve and their colleagues at Jerusalem. In view of the 
agreement at the Conference in 46 he entertained no doubt 
what their verdict would be ; but even had they decided 
against him, he would still have maintained his position and 

1 Gal. ii. 13. viroKpLTrfi, the epithet wherewith our Lord constantly branded 
the Pharisees, signified properly not '' a hypocrite ' but ' an actor ' on the stage. 
Cf. The Days of His Flesh., p. 102. 

2 In Ac. xv. 2 the subject of ira^av is ol ah\<f)oi (cf. xiii. 3), but according to 
Cod. Bez. (D) supported by Syriac Version, they were impelled by the insistence of 
the Judaists : H\eyev yap 6 IlaOXos \iivtiv ovrats Ka6us iirivTevaav Surxvptfifievos' 
ol 5e i\r)\vddTes dirb 'lcpovuakrip, irapyf^yeCKav airoii rtp HavKip ko.1 Bapvd^a ko.1 
tktlv &X\ois avafiaiveiv xpbs rovs airoatSXovs, /r.r.X., 'for Paul stoutly contended 
that they should so remain as they had believed ; but those who had come from 
Jerusalem urged them, Paul and Barnabas and some others, to go up to the 
Apostles, etc. 5 



THE COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM in 

proclaimed a free Gospel of salvation by faith alone. He 
went up to Jerusalem, not to learn what he must preach, 
but to have the issue between Jewish and Gentile Christianity 
denned and obtain a final settlement of the vexatious con- 
troversy. The question was already determined in his mind, 
and this is proved by his procedure. The route from 
Antioch to Tarsus led through Phoenicia and Samaria, and 
Christianity had already been introduced into those coun- cf. vm. i. 
tries. There was a church in every town where the travellers 25 ' I9 " 
halted, and they visited each and told the glad story of ' the 
conversion of the Gentiles ' — the cause which they were 
going to Jerusalem not to debate but to vindicate. 

In view of all that had transpired the winter must have Arrival 
been well advanced ere they left Antioch, and their progress ^n oTthe 
through Phoenicia and Samaria would occupy a considerable dele sates. 
time. Thus it was probably about the beginning of the year 
50 when they reached Jerusalem. The Judaists had hast- 
ened thither, and the Church was apprised of the approach 
of the Antiochene deputies and accorded them a gracious 
reception. No immediate mention was made of the con- 
troversy which had arisen at Antioch. The ostensible 
errand of Paul and Barnabas was to report upon their mission ; 
and it was only after they had told the story at an ordinary 
meeting of the Church that the true issue emerged. Several 
representatives of the Pharisaic party * rose and took 
objection to the procedure of the missionaries, and insisted 
on the necessity of circumcising Gentile converts and 
requiring them to observe the Mosaic Law. 

This raised the vital question, and a general assembly The 
was convened for its consideration. 2 It appears that here, CounciU 
as on the occasion of Paul's first visit to Jerusalem after his 
conversion, 3 all the Twelve except Peter, who had just 
returned from Antioch, were absent from the city, doubtless 

1 According to Cod. Bez. (D) and Syr. Vers, these were the Judaists who had 
created the trouble at Antioch and had come to Jerusalem to prosecute their 
complaint ; ol dk TrapayyeiXavTes airoh AvajSalveiv Trpbs roi/s irpe<r(3vTipovt 
i^aviarTjirav Xtyovres. 

* It was a democratic assemblage. After Trpeo-fMrepot (ver. 6) 137 SyrP add 
<ri>v t£ tt\t?)$u (cf. ver. 12). The question was decided by 'the Apostles and the 
Elders with tlie whole Church ' (ver. 22). 

» Cf. p. 60. 



ii2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



A keen 

discussion. 



Cf. Ac. 
x-xi. 18. 



State- 
ments of 
Paul and 
Barnabas. 



James s 
motion. 



in the prosecution of their apostolic enterprises. 1 James, 
the Lord's brother, however, who ranked with the Twelve 
in apostolic honour, was present, and he, as the acknowledged 
head of Jewish Christianity, presided over the assembly and 
was supported by the Elders of the Church. 

The proceedings commenced with the hearing of the 
objection, and thereafter a keen and protracted discussion 
ensued. It was an open debate, and feeling ran high until 
at length Peter intervened. He reminded the excited 
assembly of a decisive fact. Some ten years previously, while 
still dominated by Jewish prepossessions, he had gone upon 
a missionary circuit, and had been summoned from Joppa 
to Csesarea by Cornelius the Centurion, a ' God-fearer/ and 
had been led by the incontrovertible evidence of the Holy 
Spirit's operation to admit him and his household into 
Christian fellowship, though they were uncircumcised Gen- 
tiles ; and his action had been approved by the Church. 
That was now ' ancient history,' and it had never been 
challenged. The question of the admission of the Gentiles 
was already settled. They had been released from cere- 
monial obligation, and the Church could not now reimpose 
upon them a yoke which even the Jews had found intolerable. 

The Elders intimated their concurrence, and the con- 
troversy ceased. A hush fell upon the tumultuous assembly, 
and when Paul and Barnabas arose they had no need to 
defend their cause. They simply recounted amid breathless 
attention the wonders which God had wrought through 
them among the Gentiles. 

When they concluded, it only remained that the assembly 
should pronounce its judgment, and it devolved upon James 
to formulate and submit the motion. He was invested 
with unique authority in the Jewish Church by reason not 
alone of his sacred kinship 2 but of his personal character. 



1 The evidence is twofold: (i) Had any others of the Twelve been present, 
they would surely have taken part in the discussion. (2) In ver. 12 Cod. Bez. (D), 
with SyrP c*, reads <rvyKaTO.TL6efj.ivwv 5e tuiv Trpe<r(3vT4pLov rots vto tov H^Tpov 
clprjfAe'vois icrlyycrev ttoLv t6 ir\rj0os, ' and, the Elders assenting to what had been 
said by Peter, all the multitude kept silence.' Had the rest of the Twelve been 
present, they would have been mentioned as assenting. 

* On the prestige of the deairdavvoiy 'the Lord's kindred,' cf. letter of Africanus 
in Eus. Hist. Eccl. 1. 7. 



THE COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM 113 

His ascetic austerity had earned him the appellation of 
' the Righteous,' * and thus he was free from every suspicion 
of laxity. He was the very exemplar of Jewish piety, and 
his espousal of the cause of the Gentile Christians constituted 
an emphatic refutation of Judaistic scrupulosity. In a 
speech fragrant with the spirit of the ancient faith he sub- 
mitted his judgment. ' My judgment,' he said, ' is that we 
should not harass the Gentile converts to God, but should 
send them a letter that they abstain from the pollutions of 
idols, and fornication, and bloodshed.' 2 

It was a courageous and indeed revolutionary proposal. The 
It absolutely released the Gentile converts from the cere- d ° c u r ee! 8 
monial Law, and imposed upon them three simple and 
indisputable obligations : that they should renounce the 
unholy rites of idolatry and worship the one living and true 
God ; that they should practise chastity ; 3 and that they 
should recognise the sanctity of human life. It was probably 
only the authority of James that reconciled the Council to so 
startling and sweeping an innovation. It was indeed, as 
the event proved, profoundly distasteful to the extremer 
Judaists ; yet they durst not openly dissent, and the 
resolution was accepted without opposition and registered 
as a decree of the Church. 

The Council's business did not end here. The controversy Message 
so wantonly excited at Antioch had occasioned grave dis- ancTto 1 * 
quietude not only in the Gentile capital but in the dependent Syrfa- 
churches throughout the Province of Syria-Cilicia ; and in 
order to restore peace it was resolved to embody the decree 
in a circular letter. This was to be conveyed by Paul 
and Barnabas ; and, still further to reassure the Gentile 
Christians, two representatives of the Church at Jerusalem 

1 Cf. Hegesippus' account of his Nazirite asceticism, his piety, and his 
martyrdom in Eus. Hist. Eccl. u. 23. 

2 On the text of the Council's decree cf . Append. V. 

3 On the ceremonial interpretation of the decree the introduction of ' fornication ' 
seems incongruous, and two remedies have been suggested. 1. Dr. John Lightfoot 
understood by ■Kopveia either bigamy and polygamy or marriage within the pro- 
hibited degrees (so Ramsay). 2. Tropvelas has been conjecturally emended into 
\0Lpdas (Bentley quoted by Wetstein), 'swine's flesh,' or Tropxelas (cf. Scrivener, 
Tntrod.y p. 491), 'pork,' from Latin porciis. But both words are unexampled. 
' Swine's flesh ' is x oi P €LOV (sc. Kpias). 

H 



Cf. Ac, i. 

23 



114 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Deputa- were deputed to accompany them. One was Judas Barsabbas, 

judasand probably, in view of the common patronymic, a brother of 

siias. Joseph Barsabbas who had been nominated with Matthias 

some twenty years previously to the vacancy in the ranks 

of the Twelve. The other was Silas ; and he is introduced 

without more explicit designation inasmuch as he was 

1 Th. i. 1 ; afterwards so well known. Silas, the name which he bears 

2 Cor/i. 1 : m the Book of Acts, is the familiar abbreviation of Silvanus, 
I9 p' f'v *^ e more ceremonious designation which he bears in the 
12. Apostle's letters. He was apparently a man of good con- 
Ac. xvi, dition, since he was, like Paul, a Roman citizen. Both 

deputies were prominent in the Church of Jerusalem ; and 
they were well qualified for the office, since they both 
cf. xv. 33. belonged to the prophetic order. Their message to Antioch 
would be a living word of God. 
The letter ran thus : 1 

Ed cyclical ' The Apostles and the Presbyters, your brothers, 2 to the 
letter. Gentile brothers in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia : greeting. 
Whereas we heard that some of our number 3 had troubled you 
with arguments to the unsettlement of your souls — to whom 
we gave no instructions — it was our unanimous decision to 
choose delegates and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas 
and Paul, men who have surrendered their lives for the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore commissioned Judas 
and Silas, who will themselves also deliver the same message 
verbally. It was the Holy Spirit's decision and ours 4 to impose 
upon you no further burden beyond these essentials — abstinence 
from things sacrificed to idols and bloodshed and fornication. 
From these you will do well to keep yourselves. 5 Farewell.' 

1 Doubtless an authentic copy, since the letter was an important document, and 
not only would the original remain for future reference (cf. Ac. xxi. 25) but 
Paul would preserve his copy and each Church the copy it received. It would 
thus be easily accessible, and so painstaking a historian as Luke would not neglect 
so ready an opportunity. 

1 Not Kai ol &8€\(f>ol (N C EHLP) but d5e\<t>ol (X*ABCD), 'the Apostles and 
the Presbyters, themselves brothers' (cf. I Tim. ii. 5). They wrote in name of 
the whole Church (cf. vers. 22, 25), and they disown hierarchical pretension by 
writing as ' brothers to brothers.' 

* Omitting e£e\66vTe$ with N*B. 

* A characteristically primitive expression. The voice of the Spirit-guided 
Church was the Spirit's will articulate. 

6 The v.l. irpd^are (CDs r HL), 'from these you have done well in keeping 
yourselves,' would be a generous recognition that the Gentile converts had hitherto 
been irreproachable. 



THE COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM 115 

Armed with this gracious communication, Paul and Return to 
Barnabas, with their fellow-deputies from Antioch and the 
two delegates of the Council, took their departure from 
Jerusalem. On the way thither their progress had been 
leisurely, broken by visits to the Christian communities en 
route ; but now they were eager to report the happy issue, 
and they made such haste that they reached Antioch ' in a 
few days.' * The Church assembled, and its heart was 
gladdened by the Council's letter and the kindly discourse 
of Judas and Silas. 

* Cod. Bez. (D) iv ypdpait iXlyais KarrjXdow. 



THE SECOND MISSION 

1 She heard it, the victorious West, 
In crown and sword array'd ! 
She felt the void which mined her breast, 
She shiver'd and obey'd. 

4 She veil'd her eagles, snapp'd her sword, 
And laid her sceptre down ; 
Her stately purple she abhorr'd, 
And her imperial crown.' 

Matt. Arnold. 



Ac. xv. 33. 

40. 

Ministry 
of Judas 
and Silas 
in Syria- 
Cilicia. 



Alienation 
of Paul 
and Bar- 
nabas. 



DISUNION OF PAUL AND BARNABAS 

Judas and Silas remained a while at Antioch. They had 
come to undo the mischief which the controversy had 
wrought and heal the rankling sore which it had left. The 
work demanded time and patience ; and since the Council's 
letter was addressed not alone to the Church of Antioch 
but to all the churches of Syria-Cilicia, it is likely that the 
delegates would make a circuit of the province. And thus 
their mission would occupy a considerable time, probably 
at least a month. At length it was successfully accom- 
plished ; and the Church formally recognised the service 
which they had rendered and gave them their discharge. 1 

They were now free to take their departure, and Judas 
forthwith returned to Jerusalem. Silas, however, remained 
behind. It appears that there had grown up betwixt him 

1 <xT€\66r)(Tav fier' elprjwqs (cf. xvi. 36) denotes their formal discharge by the 
Church on the accomplishment of their commission, and does not necessarily 
imply their departure from the city. Silas remained (cf. ver. 40) ; and the 
situation is elucidated in CD(Cod. Bez.) Vulg. by the gloss (ver. 34): %So£e 81 
t$ 2tXp kinfx^ivai avrov, 'but it seemed good to Silas to remain there,' D Vulg 
adding fj.6vos 8t 'Ioi/5as eiropevd-r), 'but Judas went his way alone.' 
110 



THE SECOND MISSION 117 

and Paul a warm sympathy, and the Apostle detained him 
in view of an untoward eventuality which had of late pre- 
sented itself to his mind. The vacillation of Barnabas in 
the trouble with the Judaists would rankle in his memory, 
and his distrust of his old friend and comrade had been 
strengthened during their visit to Jerusalem. They had 
found John Mark there at home with his mother Mary. He 
was ashamed of the part which he had played in Pamphylia 
and desirous to retrieve his character ; and Barnabas, with 
his wonted generosity and perhaps a natural partiality for 
his kinsman, would have condoned the past, and he con- 
templated the association of Mark with the next mission 
and his reinstatement in the office of attendant. To Paul, 
however, such lenience was displeasing, and he viewed the 
deserter with unabated disapprobation. 

In due course the question was brought to a direct and Dissension 
open issue. It was now springtime and travel was once JohnMarL 
more practicable, and Paul proposed that they should 
address themselves to a second expedition and revisit the 
churches which they had founded in Cyprus, Pamphylia, 
and Galatia. Barnabas agreed, but when he intimated his 
desire that John Mark should again attend them, Paul 
stoutly objected. ' The man who deserted from us in 
Pamphylia and went not with us to the work ! 1 refuse to 
take him with us.' * Barnabas insisted, and a sharp alter- 
cation ensued. It was a collision of temperaments and 
ideals : on the one side, the passionate enthusiasm which 
sacrifices all for a sacred cause and accounts faltering a 
treason meriting measureless condemnation and eternal 
contempt ; and, on the other, that sweet reasonableness 
which ' is always trustful, always hopeful, always patient/ 1 cor. xiii. 
' despairing of no man/ Agreement was impossible, and 7 ' j^y V1, 
the dispute ended in a rupture betwixt the two. mar s- 

It was a tragic denouement. ' Which/ says St. Dissocia- 
Chrysostom, ' was the better counselled it is not for us to tlon ' 
show ' ; and it were perhaps well to leave it there. Yet one 
cannot but think how different the issue might have been 

1 The stinging sentence (Ac. xv. 38) is plainly an echo of Paul's indignant 
protest. aTroarauTa (A, a.-KOGra.T'qou.v ra), ' played the apostate ' (cf. 2 Th. ii. 3), 
replaces the gentler a-rr oxupyv as of the historian (xiii. 13). 



u8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

cr. Ac. ix. had Paul remembered how much he owed to the charity of 
Barnabas, who had believed in him when no one else would, 
and by his generous faith in the humbled persecutor had 
won for him an opportunity of redeeming his shameful 
past. By the subsequent course of events God adjudged 
the controversy, and His judgment was a vindication of 
Barnabas. His kinsman's generosity afforded John Mark 
an opportunity of purging his disgrace ; and that he right 
cf. 2 Tim. nobly availed himself of it Paul at the long last ungrudgingly 
recognised. Meanwhile, however, the alienation was com- 
plete. It seems indeed that the old comrades parted in 
charity, since they divided the field between them, Barnabas 
taking Cyprus and Paul Galatia. But their parting was 
final. It would appear that they held each other in friendly 
cr. i Cor. remembrance ; for there is a kindly though obscure reference 
to Barnabas in a letter of Paul some five years later. But 
there is no evidence that they ever resumed the old fellow- 
ship ; probably they never saw each other's face again. 
This is the last appearance of Barnabas in the sacred narra- 
tive ; and tradition, whatever it may be worth, affirms that 
he died a martyr's death in Cyprus. The Jews burned him 
at the stake outside the gate of Salamis and threw his ashes 
into the sea. 1 
Alliance of Barnabas gone, Paul turned to Silas and adopted him as 
snas and ms comrade. It is written that he ' made choice of him,' 
Ac. xv. 40. suggesting that there were others who would willingly have 
accompanied him. And indeed there was no lack of com- 
petent and devoted men in the Church of Antioch ; but the 
fitness of Silas was pre-eminent. It was proved by the 
distinction he had won at Jerusalem and by his recent service 
in the Gentile capital. And he possessed two especial 
qualifications. One was that he was a Jew and at the same 
time an ardent champion of Gentile liberties ; and the 
other that he was a Roman citizen with the wide outlook 
which that dignity implied and the prestige and immunity 
which it ensured wherever Roman Law prevailed. And 
thus he was fitted at once to disarm Jewish prejudice and 
to win Gentile confidence. 

1 Act. Barn, xxifi. 



THE SECOND MISSION 119 



II 

PROGRESS THROUGH ASIA MINOR Ac.xv. 4 i- 

xvi. 8. 

The Church bade the missionaries Godspeed and they set Departure 
forth. The original design had been that Paul and Barnabas Sonw-ies. S 
should, at all events in the first instance, revisit the converts 
whom they had already won ; and they would then have 
retraced their former route, taking ship to Cyprus and pro- 
ceeding thence by Pamphylia to Southern Galatia. But 
now that they have parted company, they go their separate 
ways. Barnabas betook himself to Cyprus, and Paul with 
his new colleague travelled overland direct to Galatia. The 
change of programme presented a double advantage. Since 
the overland route led through the Province of Syria- 
Cilicia, it afforded the missionaries an opportunity of visiting 
the disquieted churches by the way and reiterating the Their pro- 
assurances which Silas and Judas had already addressed to 1^^™. 
them in their hasty circuit for the delivery of the Council's 
tetter. Moreover, the time which would have been con- 
sumed in revisiting Cyprus was now at their disposal ; and 
their purpose was that after traversing Southern Galatia 
from east to west they should continue their progress west- 
ward from Pisidian Antioch into the Province of Asia and, 
travelling through the populous valley of the Lycus and 
Maeander by the great Trade Route, evangelise the cities 
which lay along it — Apameia, Colossae, Laodiceia, Hierapolis, 
Tralles, and Magnesia — until they reached its western 
terminus, Ephesus, the brilliant capital of the province. 

Nothing is recorded of their doings in the course of their Progress 
journey through Syria-Cilicia save that they ' confirmed the s h y r ,°a- gh 
Churches ' ; but it would be a pleasant and profitable cmda. 
ministry. After his recent circuit of the province Silas was 
no stranger ; and as for Paul, it was he who, some ten years cf. Gai. i. 
previously, had founded those churches, and he would be 
received by his spiritual children with affectionate gladness. 
Their progress would thus be slow, and they would doubtless 
be detained longest at Tarsus, where Paul had ancient 



21. 



i2o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

associations and numerous friends. Nor indeed, if they had 
set out from Antioch in the spring, was haste necessary ; 
for the Taurus lay betwixt them and Galatia, and the 
crossing by that famous pass, the Gates of Cilicia, 1 was 
impracticable ere the close of May. 2 
Across Through the Gates of Cilicia they entered the Kingdom 

Antiocli. °f Antiochus ; and it is remarkable that they seem to have 
preached nowhere within its borders. Already the Roman 
Empire had captivated the Apostle's imagination. He was 
dreaming of its transfiguration into a Commonwealth of God, 
and he hastened across the intervening territory until he 
had passed the frontier and gained the town of Derbe. 
Revisita- There he began his course of revisitation. His chief 
GaLtian e trouble in South Galatia had been the hostility of the Jews, 
churches. an( j j n or d er to assuage it and save his converts from further 
molestation he brought with him a copy of the Council's 
decree. The Council's letter indeed had been addressed 
particularly to the churches of Syria-Cilicia, but the decree 
which it embodied was an authoritative judgment on the 
vexed question of the relation of Gentile Christians to the 
Jewish Law, and thus it had a general import. It constituted 
the charter of Gentile liberty, and therefore he would present 
it to the Galatian churches. His hope was that it would 
not merely silence the clamour of the Jews but bring them 
to a juster appreciation of his Gospel. They had mis- 
construed it. His attitude was that the ancient Law had 
served its end, and now that it had been fulfilled in Christ, 
its ordinances were no longer obligatory. They belonged 
to the category of ' things indifferent ' ; and so long as a 
Cf. i Cor. Jew recognised that salvation was by faith alone, he was 
SU'ao.'-' 19 ' fr" ee > if ne would, to observe the ancient rites which long 
usage had endeared to him. The Apostle insisted on Gentile 
freedom, but he would not needlessly wound Jewish senti- 
ment. And he was anxious to make this clear. 
Associa- An effective opportunity presented itself when he 
Timothy, reached Lystra. He found there his friends, the widow 
Eunice and her mother Lois and her son Timothy. They 
had proved true to the faith which they had professed | and 

1 Cf. Strabo, 537. 

8 Cf. Ramsay, Church in Rom. Em/., pp. 84 f. 



THE SECOND MISSION 121 

Timothy, young as he was, had attested his devotion not 
only in Lystra but in the neighbouring town of Iconium. 
Paul recognised in the lad the promise of future usefulness, Cf. 1 Tim. 
and he decided to engage him in the service of the Gospel 1V ' I4 ' 
by associating him with the mission in the room of John 
Mark. His mother was a devout Jewess, but his father 
had been a Gentile and the lad had never been circumcised. 
Here Paul perceived an opportunity of defining his attitude 
toward the Law and correcting misapprehension. Circum- His cir- 
cision was indeed a thing indifferent, but it was sacred in 
Jewish eyes ; and since Timothy was half a Jew, he circum- 
cised him. 1 His action here stands in significant contrast 
with his stout refusal of the Jewish demand four years 
previously that Titus should be circumcised. 2 Titus was a 
Gentile, and his circumcision had been required as necessary 
to salvation ; but Timothy was half a Jew, and his circum- 
cision was a recognition of Jewish liberty in ' things in- 
different/ It was a gracious and conciliatory action, none 
the less wise that it was misinterpreted and afterwards 
employed by his ungenerous enemies as a controversial 
weapon against the large-hearted Apostle. 3 

Thus they travelled westward from town to town and a provi- 
church to church until they reached Pisidian Antioch ; 4 f n e t e r p OS i_ 
and there Paul would be affectionately greeted by his old £?" at 
friends, particularly the physician Luke. Their intention Antioch. 
was to proceed westward into the Province of Asia, and there 
break fresh soil ; but it was providentially frustrated. 

1 Evidently with his own hand. The operation did not require a priest : any 
Jew might perform it after the example of Abraham (cf. Gen. xvii. 23). 

2 Cf. p. 75. The contrast between Paul's refusal to circumcise Titus (cf. Gal. 
ii. 3) and his voluntary circumcision of Timothy served Baur (cf. Paul, I. pp. 129 f.) 
as an argument for his theory that the Book of Acts is a Tendenzschrift with an 
irenical purpose. 

3 Cf. p. 201. 

4 tt]v Qpvyiau ical Va\aTiK7]v x^P av > 'the Phrygo-Galatic District,' i.e., the 
Phrygian District of the Province of Galatia, to which Antioch belonged. 
Cf. p. 90. 5irj\6ov KOjXvOevres would seem to imply that the hindrance preceded : 
' they passed through the Phrygo-Galatic District because they had been hindered.' 
Hence the variant SteXOovres (HLP), dependent like KcoXvOevres and tXOovres on 
iireipa^ov. But Kw\vdevTes is a 'timeless aorist ' (cf. Moulton, Proleg. pp. 134 f.). 
Cf. xxiii. 35 : ecf>ri . . . Ke\e6<ras, 'said he and commanded' ; xxv. 13 : Karr^rrjcav 
els Kaiaapdav dairaad/xeuoi rhv $t)ctov, 'arrived and greeted.' Heb. ii. 10; 
ix. 12. 



122 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Ac. xx. 3. 



The plan 
of evan- 
gelising 
Asia over- 
ruled. 



' They were hindered/ it is written, ' by the Holy Spirit 
from speaking the Word in Asia.' What precisely the 
hindrance may have been is matter of conjecture ; but this 
much is certain — that it was no supernatural revelation ; it 
was a providential dispensation. An apt illustration occurs 
later in the narrative, where it is related that Paul, at the 
conclusion of his third mission, was on the point of taking 
ship at Corinth when he learned that a plot was on foot 
among his Jewish fellow-passengers to assassinate him in 
the course of the voyage ; and he abandoned his purpose 
and travelled overland. There is here nothing supernatural ; 
and some pious scribe, taking it amiss that God should be 
thus, as it seemed to him, left out of account, has refashioned 
the sentence and written : ' He purposed to set sail for 
Syria, but the Spirit told him to return through Macedonia.' * 
And indeed the emendation, needless though it be, is after 
the general manner of the Holy Scriptures. They recognise 
God's will and God's hand in everything that befalls, and 
they ignore ' secondary causes.' These indeed are never 
lacking, but they never stand alone. The hand of God is 
always behind them. They are His providential dispensa- 
tions, revelations of His will and leadings of His Holy Spirit. 
And so it was that the missionaries ' were hindered by 
the Holy Spirit from speaking the Word in Asia.' Their 
purpose was providentially overruled ; nor is it difficult, 
in view of their circumstances, to surmise with reasonable 
probability what it was that befell. It would be midsummer 
when they reached Antioch, the very season when Paul, 
three years before, had arrived there in the grip of the 
malaria which had stricken him in Pamphylia and which 
permanently afflicted him, recurring whenever he was 
overtoiled. And now he was exhausted by his long travel 
afoot and his incessant labours by the way. Symptoms of 
his malady appeared, and the physician Luke forbade him to 
prosecute his purpose of advancing into Asia. The rich, 
alluvial valley of the Lycus and Maeander, with its warm 
springs and its sultry climate, 2 was, especially at that season, 

1 Cod. Bez., SyrP m s : ijOtXrjffep ivax&TJvai els "Svplav etinv de rb Hvev/jLa adr£ 
inroo-rpttpeiv did. ttJs MaiceSovlas. 
» Cf. p. 548. 



THE SECOND MISSION 123 

a hotbed of malaria ; and to adventure himself there would 
have been perilous for the Apostle ; it would inevitably 
have involved a disastrous and probably fatal sickness. 

In this warning Paul recognised the guiding voice of the Quest for 
Holy Spirit. Asia was providentially closed against him, l"\d" 
and he must turn elsewhere for a field of operation. Whither 
should he betake himself ? The south was impracticable, 
since in the coastal lowlands, as his experience in Pamphylia 
had taught him, he would have been exposed to the same 
peril ; and he had already preached in the east. The north 
alone remained, and he set out from Pisidian Antioch 
accompanied not only by Silas and Timothy but by Luke. 
He was ailing, and ' the beloved physician,' with kindly 
solicitude, would attend him on his way and see him settled 
on his next field of operation. 1 

They set their faces northward and travelled through Travelling 
the Phrygian uplands. It was a healthful and invigorating northward - 
region, but it was sparsely peopled and had few towns and 
no cities, and nowhere did Paul find what he sought. Like 
the Master's in the days of His flesh, his heart ever yearned cf. Mt. w. 
toward the multitude ; and his constant venue was some Mk 3 vi'. 34 . 
busy centre where need abounded, and where, moreover, 
the Common Greek was spoken and men's minds were alert 
and receptive. It was such a scene that he sought ; and he 
wandered on with his company in fruitless quest until they 
found themselves abreast of Mysia, the north-western corner 
of Asia Minor. It presented no fitting field, and their 
thoughts turned toward the extensive Province of Bithynia 
and Pontus which stretched from the borders of the Kingdom 
of Polemo a little eastward of Amisos to the shores of the 
Propontis. As they approached it, however, it proved less 

1 The evidence is that from this point Luke tells the story in the first person 
(cf. ver. 10). It is remarkable that at the beginning of the paragraph (vers. 6-10), 
where he indicates with extreme brevity the course of the northward wandering, 
he employs the third person {dirjXdop, eirdpafrv, avrofc), and then suddenly after 
the arrival at Troas passes into the first. On the assumption that he belonged to 
Pisidian Antioch (cf. Append. IV) two explanations suggest themselves : either 
that he set out after Paul and his two colleagues and overtook them at Troas ; or, 
as seems more probable, that he set out with them and it was only at Troas that 
he determined to cast in his lot with them. Not till he had become a participator 
in the work did he introduce himself into the narrative. 



i2 4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

and less alluring. It lay remote, an outskirt of the Empire, 
a mere backwater of the tide of the world's life. Its cities 
were few, and even the chief of them, Nicasa and Nicomedia, 
were of small importance. ' The spirit of Jesus,' 1 the 
passion for souls, warned them that their work did not 
lie there ; and on reaching the frontier they turned back 
and entered Mysia and travelled through it, preaching 
nowhere, 2 until they reached Troas on the western coast. 



Ill 
Ac xvi. THE CALL OF THE WEST 

9-11. 

The city of Troas was an illustrious city. 3 It was founded by Antigonus, 
and was originally named after him Antigonia. Subsequently 
it was named Alexandria after Alexander the Great ; and to 
distinguish it from the Egyptian Alexandria it was designated 
Alexandria Troas, that is, Alexandria in the Troad. 4 It was 
a Roman colony, 5 and it is a striking evidence of its prestige 
that Julius Caesar was credited with the design of transferring 
thither the seat of the imperial government. 6 
Glimpses It was by no purpose of their own that the missionaries 
West! found themselves at Troas. They had been carried thither, 
as it seemed, like driftwood by the tide ; yet, as the event 
proved, that tide was the will of God, and His hand had been 
guiding them all the while to unsuspected issues. The city 
presented a hopeful arena for evangelical enterprise, and 
Paul may have contemplated settling there for a season. 
It had, however, been otherwise ordained, and, ere he could 
commence operations, God's larger purpose was discovered 
to him. On his arrival he would view his surroundings with 

1 to Tvev/xa 'I-qcrod KABC 2 DE. 

8 rrapeXdovTes 8e tt\v 'hivalav, prcrterita Mysia, prcetergressi Mysiam (Wetstein). 
They travelled through the country, passing along without stopping anywhere. 

* Strabo, 581. 

4 'AXe^&vopeia 7/ Tpyas. Strabo, 593. 
6 Strabo, 593 ; Plin. Nat. Hist. v. 33. 

* Suet. Jul. Ccvs. 79. 



THE SECOND MISSION 125 

curious interest. Troas was a busy seaport, situated on 
the western verge of the Orient ; and she was frequented 
by European merchants who thronged her markets and 
traversed her streets, presenting in their western attire novel 
figures to Jewish eyes. Especially noticeable were the 
Macedonians with their Greek mantles and the broad hats 
which served at once as a shelter from the summer heat and 
as helmets in their frequent affrays. 1 The spectacle would 
stir his mind, and his imagination would reach afar over the 
blue ^Egean to the lands beyond the golden sunset — Greece, 
the home of art, poetry, and philosophy, and Rome, the 
Imperial City, the mistress of the world. Could it be that 
God was calling him thither, and that it was for this end 
that his purpose of preaching in the Province of Asia had 
been overruled and he had in his ignorance been conducted 
to Troas ? 

He would communicate his musings to his companions, Call to 
and after he had lain down to rest his waking meditations donia. 
shaped themselves into a dream. A man stood before him 
in the Macedonian attire which" he had remarked in the 
streets of Troas, and addressed to him the appeal : ' Cross 
over to Macedonia, and succour us.' 2 In the morning he 
related the dream to his companions ; and, chiming as it did 
with their surmises, they took it as a divine revelation 3 
and resolved to obey it. Luke was with them. He had 
accompanied Paul from Pisidian Antioch, and the Holy 
Spirit had been inclining his heart to the service of the 
Kingdom of Heaven. He recognised in this new departure, 
this high enterprise, a personal appeal ; and he responded 
to it. He cast in his lot with the missionaries, and thence- 
forth he was a devoted comrade of the Apostle. 

Next day 4 they set sail for Macedonia. It was now the The 



voyage 



1 The Greek mantle (xXa/^s) was originally a Macedonian garment. Cf. 
Becker, Charicles, p. 421. On the sun-hat (/caucriT?) cf. quotation in Suidas : 
Kavair/, r\ rcnr&poiOe MaK7]86(nv eijKo\ov SrrXovjKal aneTras ev vupercp nal nopvs 4? 

* fiorjdrjaov rjfuv, cf. Mt. xv. 25 ; Mk. ix. 22, 24; Heb. ii. 18. 

8 Cod. Bez. (D) reads (ver. 10) dieyepOels odv dnjyrjcraTo to opa/xa i]puv, ko.I 
ivor]<rap.ep on 7rpo<TKei<\7)Tcu, k.t.X., 'on waking he related the vision to us, and 
we perceived that,' etc. 

* Cod. Bez. (D), SyrP mg , 137 : rrj dt i-rratipiou avaxtevres. 



126 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

month of August, and the Etesian Winds were blowing 
steadily from the north-west ; * but, aided by the current 
which bore down from the Hellespont, 2 the ship was able 
to lay a straight course as far as the island of Samothrace. 
There she harboured for the night ; and next morning she 
held across to the Thracian coast and, working westward 
with the aid of tides and land-breezes, ere nightfall made 
the port of Neapolis in Macedonia. 



Ac. xvi. ra- J\f 

xvii, 4 ; 
i Th. ii. 9 ; 

xs^eJ'Ac. EVANGELISATION OF MACEDONIA 

xvii. 5-15. 

Phiiippi. Ten to twelve miles inland 8 on the river Gangites, 4 a tribu- 
tary of the Strymon, lay the town of Phiiippi ; and thither 
they betook themselves. It was a fitting scene for the inau- 
guration of their European ministry. The town was named 
after Alexander the Great's father, Philip of Macedon, who 
had founded it on the site of the ancient Crenides or ' Wells ' 
for the working of the gold and silver mines which at that 
period constituted the main wealth of the district. 5 Hard 
by was the field of the famous battle which determined the 
imperial destiny of Rome, and in memory of his victory 
Augustus had made the town a military colony with the 
high-sounding title, preserved to this day on coins, colonia 
julia augusta PHILIPPENSIUM. A Roman colony was a 
miniature of the Imperial City, 6 reproducing her institutions 
and aping her dignity with an often ridiculous punctilious- 
ness ; and Phiiippi exhibited this foible in full measure 
Her chief magistrates, properly ' duumvirs,' assumed the 
lofty designation of ' praetors,' 7 and their officers went by 

1 Cf. Append. I, p. 648. * Plin. Nat. Hist. 11. 100. 

* dirb ^do/j.rjKovra aradioov (Appian, Civil Wars, IV. 106). 

4 The name varies: Gangas or Gangites (Appian, ibid.), Angites (Herod, vn. 

113)- 

h Strabo, 330. 

6 Cf. Gellius, xvi. 13 : * Ex civitate propagatse . . . Populi Romani, cujus 
istse colonise effigies parvae simulacraque esse quaedam videntur.' 

7 GTpaTtjyoi. Cf. vers. 20, 22, 35, 36, 38. 



THE SECOND MISSION 127 

the name of ' lictors.' 1 Nor was she content with this 
petty vanity. When Macedonia fell under the dominion of 
the Romans after its conquest in 168 B.C., it was divided 
into four districts, 2 and Amphipolis was the capital of 
the eastern district ; but Philippi in her pride appropriated 
this pre-eminence. 3 Despite her small arrogance the city 
contained a rich and varied life, and afforded the heralds 
of the Gospel a rare opportunity. The population was 
composed of three main elements. First, there were the 
Roman colonists, the dominant caste ; then there were the 
native Macedonians, numerically the strongest section ; 
and finally there was a considerable admixture of Orientals, 
though, inasmuch doubtless as the city in those days engaged 
little in commerce, this included few Jews. Philippi was in 
truth a meeting-place of East and West, and she was daily 
visited by strangers from all lands, situated as she was on 
the Egnatian Road, that magnificent highway which 
stretched from Dyrrachium on the Adriatic to the 
Hellespont. 4 

The missionaries entered on their work without delay, The 
and Paul pursued the method which he had followed in the £ h o{ 
East, addressing his first appeal to the Jews. These were prayer. 
indeed few at Philippi, so few that they had no synagogue ; 
yet they maintained their religious usages, and they had a 
' place of prayer ' which, after the manner of Jewish worship, 
was situated outside the town by the riverside, that they 
might have water for the purposes of ceremonial ablution. 5 

1 pafidoOxoi. Cf. vers. 35, 38. 

* Liv. xlv. 29. Cf. Wetstein on Acts xvi. 12. 

3 Cf. ver. 12 : tjtis iarlv irpibrr/ rrjs /xepidos MctKeSovias 7r6\t$, ' which is the chief 
city of its division of Macedonia ' — a touch of local colouring, irp&r-q is otherwise 
taken as denoting not the dignity but the situation of Philippi — the first Mace- 
donian city which the Apostles visited — on the ground that Neapolis was not in 
Macedonia but in Thrace. The geographical connection of Neapolis, however, 
varied. It was indeed once in Thrace, but it was now reckoned in Macedonia 
(cf. Strabo, 330 ; Ptol. III. xiii. 9). It is true that Pliny (Nat. Hist. IV. 18) 
connects it with Thrace, but he assigns Philippi to Thrace as well. 

* Cf. p. 9. 

6 Ver. 1 3 : ir'ontfofiev irpoaevxhv elvat, NABC, ' we supposed there was a place 
of prayer.' irpo<revx^ was a general term, and while it might be applied to a 
synagogue (cf. Jos. ViU 54 ; Juv. in. 226), it generally denoted a mere meeting- 
place, sometimes in the open. Cf. Schurer, II. ii. pp. 68 ff. On the ablutionary 
necessity cf. Jos. Ant. XIV. x. 23 ; Letter of Aristeas : tLs £e {.60s £ot\ iracc roh 



128 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

It was probably not a building but a secluded nook on the 
river-bank. On the Sabbath after their arrival Paul and 
his companions repaired thither. It was a curious feature 
of the social life of Macedonia that women were there 
accorded singular freedom and exercised an exceptional 
authority ; 1 and this no less than the paucity of the Jewish 
population may be the reason of the remarkable circum- 
stance that, when the missionaries reached the place of 
prayer, they found a little assemblage of women-folk. They 
seated themselves and opened a conversation. Paul bore 
the principal part, and at the very outset he won a notable 

Lydia. convert. Her name was Lydia ; and though it was a 
common name in those days, 2 it had probably in her case 
a local reference. For she was not a Philippian. She 
belonged to the city of Thyatira, a Macedonian colony in 
the ancient country of Lydia, then included in the Province 
of Asia. 3 Thyatira was a seat of the celebrated Lydian 
industry of purple-dyeing, 4 and Lydia was prosperously 
engaged at Philippi in the sale of purple fabrics. She was 
not a Jewess but ' a God-fearer/ 5 and she had doubtless 
learned the Jewish faith in her native country, where there 
was a considerable Jewish population. 6 It is plain that she 

cf. ver. 15. was well-to-do, since she had a commodious residence ; 
moreover, she had a family, and, since she was absolute 
mistress, she was presumably a widow. 

Hereon. Being a God-fearer, Lydia was a seeker after the truth. 
She had recognised the insufficiency of paganism, and had 
found a measure of contentment in Judaism's pure and 
lofty monotheism ; but its ceremonial was distasteful to 
her, and her heart remained unsatisfied. The Gospel 
appealed to her need, and she listened day by day with 
ever fuller conviction, until at length she professed her 
faith 7 and she and her family were admitted to the fellow- 

'lovdaiois, aTrovL\pdfieyoi rfj 6a\d<x<Trj ras x € ?P as > ^ s & v 7)vi;avTO irpbs tov Geo?, 
GTptirovTO vpbs ttjv avayvuiGLV. 

1 Cf. p. 136, n. 5. ? Hor. Od. 1. viii. I. 

8 Strabo, 625. 

4 Plin. Nat. Hist, VII. 57. 8 Cf. p. 13. 

6 Cf. JoS. Ant: xn. iii. 4. 

7 Her conversion did not occur immediately on the first Sabbath. The imperfs. 
i\a\ou/j.ev and ■fJKovev imply repeated conversations and audiences. 



version. 




THE SECOND MISSION 129 

ship of the Church and received the sacramental seal of 
Baptism. 1 

Lydia was Europe's first convert, and she was richly Her hospi 
endowed with the Christian graces. At the very outset she tahty * 
exhibited that generous kindness which distinguished the 
Philippian Church and won for it, some ten years later, cf. Phil, 
the Apostle's grateful praise. No sooner had she been 1V- I5 * 
baptised than she invited Paul and his three companions to 
make her house their abode during their sojourn in the 
town. And she couched her invitation in terms of exquisite 
delicacy, representing their acceptance of it as a personal 
favour, an attestation of their confidence in the sincerity of 
her faith and her worthiness of the Holy Sacrament which 
had just been administered to her. ' If,' she pleaded, ' you 
have judged that I am faithful to the Lord, come into my 
house and stay.' And when they demurred, she would take 
no denial. ' She constrained us,' says Luke, employing the 
self-same word wherewith he describes the hospitable im- Cf. Lk. 
portunities of the two disciples at Emmaus when the xxlv " 
Stranger who had joined them by the way ' made as though 
He would go further,' and ' they constrained Him, saying, 
' Stay with us ; for it is toward evening, and the day is 
now far spent." ' 2 

Lydia's house was thenceforward the abode of the mission- a suc- 
aries and the meeting-place of their converts. Her con- mfnfstry. 
version was the first-fruits of a successful ministry which cf. ver. 40. 
extended beyond the narrow limits of the Jewish com- 
munity and moved the whole city. The lack of a synagogue cf. ver. 'ax. 
with its jealous rulers proved thus far advantageous, that 
there was no outbreak of Jewish hostility, and the Apostles 
continued to resort to the place of prayer and there dis- 
coursed to the townsfolk who followed them to hear the 
Word. The days passed prosperously and peacefully, and it 
can hardly have been earlier than the close of the year when 
an incident befell which interrupted their activities and 
brought their Philippian sojourn to an abrupt termination. 

The pagan mind was tolerant of new ideas and hospitable a crazed 

to alien religions, and the Apostles encountered in Gentile a fortune- 
teller. 

1 Cf. Append. VI. 

3 These are the only instances of wapapi&teadcu in the New Testament. 
I 



130 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

communities nothing of that fierce resentment which their 
doctrinal innovations excited in Jewish breasts. Neverthe- 
less the Gospel was an offence to the Gentiles no less than to 
the Jews, and whenever it touched their worldly interests, 
they were up in arms. So it happened at Philippi. It 
chanced one day that the missionaries were passing through 
the town on their way to the place of prayer when they 
encountered an unhappy creature — a slave-girl belonging 
to a company of charlatans 1 who employed her in fortune- 
telling and traded with her on the credulity of the populace. 
She was a ventriloquist, and in those days that faculty was 
regarded as a form of possession : the inhabiting spirit, it 
was supposed, spoke through the adept, using his lips and 
voice as its instruments. 2 The girl was also insane, and this 
only confirmed the popular faith in her declarations, since 
in the East a peculiar reverence attaches to a hamako, ' whom 
Heaven hath deprived of ordinary reason, in order to endow 
him with the spirit of prophecy/ 
Healed by Like every one else in Philippi, the poor girl had heard 
the fame of the missionaries and apparently she had listened 
to their preaching and caught some of their phrases ; and 
when she spied them, she reverentially approached and 
followed in their train, crying aloud : ' These men are slaves of 
the Most High God. They proclaim to you " the way of 
salvation/' ' as though they were exalted visitants and she 
their herald announcing their advent and mission. 3 The 

1 'There might be several masters of a single slave, e.g. two brothers' (Blass). 

* A ventriloquist (iyyao-rpl/xvdos) was dominated ' a Eurykles ' after a celebrated 
ventriloquist of that name (cf. Aristoph. Vesp. 1019), and also, as here, ' a Python 4 
(XABC*D* Trai5l<ria]v rtvd Uxovaav irvevp.a Ilvdwva, * a certain damsel having a 
spirit, a Python,' where Hvduva is in apposition to iraiSLcrKijv). Python is probably 
derived from Pytho, the oracle of the Pythian Apollo at Delphi. Cf. Plut. De 
Defact. Orac. 414 E : eOrjdes ydp icrri icai iraioiKov KOfiidrj to oieadai rbv Qebv olvtov 
uxrirep tovs iyyaarpLfxijdovs, EtipvKXe'as irdAcu vvvl 5e Hvdwvas vpocayopevo/xt'vov?, 
ivdvopevov els rd c<hp.a.ro. t&v irpo^r^v VTrcxpde'yye&dat., rots iKelvwv arbiiaai koX 
<ph)va2s xputttvov opydvois. 

s The MSS. (ver. 16) vary between vrauTTja-aL (XBCE) and drai>Tr)o'ai (ADHLP). 
Both verbs, with their nouns virdvT7i<ris and &TrdvTT}<ns, are used of the public ovation 
on the arrival of a distinguished personage. Cf. Teb. Pap. 43 (of a magistrate's 
arrival): irapeyev/idrjfAev els dirdvrTjaiv. 1 Th. iv. 17; Mt. xxv. 6; Ac. xxviii. 
15 ; Mt. viii. 34; Jo. xii. 13 ; Lk. xvii. 12 ; Mt. viii. 28 ; Jo. iv. 51, xi. 20, xii. 
18. The only other instance of KaraKoKovSeiv in the New Testament is Lk. xxiii. 
55 — a significant parallel. 



THE SECOND MISSION 131 

contretemps recurred daily until it became intolerable, and 
Paul, sharing the prevalent idea, 1 turned and, in the Lord's 
name, bade the spirit depart from the girl. Instantly her 
frenzy ceased, and she was restored to sanity. 

It was a merciful work, yet it was ill received, especially Arraign- 
by the girl's owners. She was useless now for fortune- Apostles ' 
telling, and their lucrative traffic was destroyed. They b ? h t er 

°' J masters. 

seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the market-place 
where the law-court was situated, 2 and there arraigned them 
before the magistrates. They were cunning rascals, and 
they proceeded cleverly. Their real grievance was the loss 
of their profits, but that would never have been entertained. 
And so they gave the case a political colour, and indicted 
the Apostles as disturbers of the peace : they were Jev/s, 
and they were engaging in a Jewish propaganda in contra- 
vention of Roman law. And the rabble which had trooped 
into the court loudly applauded. 

It was a dexterous indictment, and it powerfully appealed Their 
to the Philippian magistrates. Infringement of Roman condemna- 
institutions would in any case have been a serious offence in tion - 
the eyes of those petty magnates with their pompous pre- 
tensions to imperial dignity ; 3 and it happened that just 
then the Jews were in particularly evil odour and had been 
expelled by the Emperor Claudius from the capital. 4 cf. Ac 
Therefore, when a couple of itinerant Jews were brought 
before them on such a charge, the praetors made short work 
with them. Investigation was needless, and they pro- 
nounced instant sentence. They ordered their lictors to 
remove the culprits and strip and scourge them : summovete, 

LICTORES, DESPOLIATE, VERBERATE. 6 

1 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. 105 ff. 

8 At Athens several law-courts were situated in the market-place. Cf. 
Antiphon (Jebb's Select ions from the Attic Oratars, 7. § 10) : evravOot ireTroirjKaai 
tt]v icpiaiv ev T-fi ayop$. Lys. De bon. Aristoph. § 55 : ^771)5 oIkQv ttjs dyopas otire 
irpbs diKacrrripicp otfre trpb% {Jov\evrr]pl<p &ip9t]v ovoeTrwiroTe. 

3 Cf. Horace's ridicule of the praetor at Fundi {Sat. I. v. 34-36). 

4 Cf. Suet. Claud. 25. Dion Cass. lx. 6. Orosius (vn. vi. 15) assigns the edict 
of banishment to the ninth year of Claudius, i.e. 49 ; but since he antedates the 
Claudian history by a year (cf. p. 646), the date is 50, the very year which was 
just closing when the Apostles were arrested. 

6 Cf. Sen. Controv. xxv. Trcpipf,i:avTes avrCov ra ifidrta, not ' rent their own 
garments' in token of horror — a Jewish fashion (cf. p. 102), but 'tore off the 



xvni. 2. 



132 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Scourged, 

though 
Roman 
citizens. 



Cf. 


2 Cor. 


xi. 


2 5- 


Cf. 


Ac. 


xxi 


i. 24-29 



It was, though they did not know it, a grave outrage. 
Paul and Silas were both Roman citizens, and a Roman 
citizen's person was sacrosanct. It was illegal, indeed it 
was accounted nothing less than lese-majeste, to scourge 
him; and thus, when they subjected the Apostles to the 
lictors' rods, the praetors w r ere perpetrating a flagrant violation 
of the Roman law which they were so zealous in vindicating. 
The outrage was executed in full severity ; and it may seem 
strange that Paul should have submitted to it on this and 
two other unrecorded occasions. The remedy was easy. 
He had merely to inform the lictors that he was a Roman 
citizen, and they durst proceed no further. So he did at 
Jerusalem some seven years later when he was bound to the 
whipping-post by the order of Claudius Lysias, the military 
commander ; and his protest was instantly effective. And 
no doubt a like protest would be made by both the prisoners 
in this instance, but they had to deal at Philippi with 
another sort of men than Lysias and his centurion. Even 
if it were heard amid the clamour of the rabble, their claim 
w r ould be laughed to scorn by the stupid and insolent 
minions ; and thereafter they would hold their peace, dis- 
daining entreaty, unlike Verres'* victim in the forum of 
Messana, who kept shrieking above the hiss of the lash Civis 
Romanus sum. 1 

After enduring the cruel ignominy they were conveyed, 
faint and bleeding, to prison. The gaoler was ordered to 
confine them closely, and he placed them in the innermost 
ver. 34. cell of the dungeon underground, and not merely secured 
them by fetters chained to the wall but put their feet in the 
stocks. 2 When night fell, the smarting of their wounds and 
the uneasiness of their posture held them sleepless, and they 
kept a holy vigil. At midnight they were singing a hymn, 



Their 

imprison 

meat. 



prisoners' garments,' i.e. ordered them to be stripped for scourging. Cf.Wetstein's 
array of illustrative passages. 

1 Cic. In Verr. v. 62. 

2 to tyXov, nervus, termed also Trodoxdicr) and woSocrTp&jSr), was a wooden frame 
with five apertures for feet and hands and neck (cf. schol. on Aristoph. Eqitit. 
1046). Generally, however, only the feet were secured. Cf. Plut. De Gen. 
Socr. 598 B : el d£ rods irodas h Tip i;u\cp Sede/aeuot. Tas %e?pas cpeyovTes efibwp 
Seofxevoi fir] dToX(L<pdr)pai,. Luc. Tox. 29 : ovhk airoTelveiv to. <rK£\r) dvvdfxevoi er 
t<P £v\(p KaTaKa<\€i<r/Aeva. 



a 



THE SECOND MISSION 133 



and the prisoners in the neighbouring cells were listening 
wonderingly to the unaccustomed sound, when suddenly — 
a rumble and a crash ! It was an earthquake — no infrequent An earth- 
occurrence in that region, but none the less an interposition midrdght. 
of God, a stroke of His delivering hand ; and as the prison 
rocked on its foundations, the doors burst open and the 
chains dropped from the gaping masonry. The gaoler, 
asleep in his house overhead, was rudely awakened ; and on 
rushing down and finding the cell-doors open, he naturally 
concluded that the inmates had fled. And indeed they 
would presently have seized the opportunity, but meanwhile 
they were huddling terror-stricken in their cells. Their 
escape would have involved dire consequences for the 
gaoler, since by the Roman law a warder was responsible 
for his charge, and in case of his disappearance must take 
his place and suffer his penalty. 1 The prospect appalled 
him, and like a true Roman, preferring death to disgrace, he 
was about to plunge his sword into his breast when his hand 
was stayed. Paul had heard his exclamation of despair, 
and he shouted : ' Do yourself no harm ; for we are all here.' 

It was good news for the gaoler, and he called for lights Conversion 
that he might verify it. The pause afforded him leisure for g.^r and 
reflection. The doings of the missionaries were common J's Jouse- 

hold. 

knowledge in Philippi, and doubtless he had listened to their 
preaching. He had been impressed by their message of 
salvation, and had been pondering over it ; and the happen- 
ings of that night of terror brought him to decision. When 
the lights arrived, he first of all had the other prisoners 
secured ; 2 and then he bounded into the Apostles' cell and 
after a reverent greeting he conducted them out to the 
vestibule and there addressed to them the question which 
had long been stirring in his anxious breast : ' Sirs, what 
must I do to be saved ? ' They told him that the way was 
i tli in the Lord Jesus; and there in the dimly lighted 
vestibule they discoursed of the Saviour to the gaoler and 
ins assembled household — his officers and his wife and 

1 Cf. Wetstein. 

2 In ver. 30 Cod. Bez. (D) has ical irporiyayev a&rovs ££a> tovs Xoittoi^s ac^aXt- 
0-dp.epos Ka.i dtrev auToh, ' and brought them forth after securing the rest, and said 

to them.' 



134 LIFE AND LETTERS OE ST. PAUL 

children. 1 Every heart was won ; and only then were 
earthly concernments remembered. He washed the wounds 
of the Apostles, and they baptised him and his household. 
They were still his prisoners, and he must detain them at 
the pleasure of the magistrates ; but he would not recommit 
them to their cell. He brought them upstairs to his house 
and entertained them there. They had tasted nothing 
since their arrest, and, late as it was, a meal was spread before 
them, and the gladness of the converted household made it a 
very festival. 
Alarm of Meanwhile the magistrates were ill at ease. They could 
trates aglS hardly review their high-handed procedure without com- 
punction ; and the earthquake, breaking their restless 
slumbers, smote them with superstitious alarms. 2 Was it, 
they asked themselves, a wrathful visitation of the god 
whom those two Jews had proclaimed ? The Roman law- 
courts opened at the early hour of 8 a.m. ; * and when the 
panic-stricken magistrates met, they hastily agreed to repair 
the wrong. They despatched their lictors to the prison with 
an order for their release. 
Their The gaoler received the mandate, and joyfully informed 

To the gy them that they were at liberty to take their departure ; but 
prisoners. p au | scornfully declined. He was minded to teach the 
magistrates a lesson and ensure his converts in Philippi 
against future molestation. : They scourged us publicly/ 
said he, ' without a trial, Romans though we are, and cast 
us into prison ; and are they now for casting us out privily ? 
No indeed ; let them come in person and bring us out/ 
The gaoler repeated his answer to the lictors, and they 
reported it to the magistrates. It increased their alarm. 
It was the first intimation they had that the men they 
had abused were Roman citizens, and they realised the 
gravity of their position. They hastened to the prison 
and humbled themselves before the missionaries. They 

1 In ver. 33 several lesser authorities have oi viol avrov, 'his children.' 
1 In ver. 35 Cod.Bez. (D) and Syr. Vers, read ovvrfkdov ol ffrpaTijyol iirl rb avrb els 
tt\v dyopav ko! dvapLvrjadevres rbv <reicr/xbv top yeyovora iipo^/]6r]<rav koX diriffTcikav 
roi/t pafidovxovs, ' the praetors assembled in the forum, and in remembrance of the 
earthquake which had happened were affrighted, and commissioned the lictors,' 
* Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 477. 



THE SECOND MISSION 135 

brought them out and, representing to them the risk they 
ran of fresh annoyance from their prosecutors and the 
rabble, besought them to quit the city. 1 Their profession of 
solicitude on this score was a feeble attempt to shift the 
blame from themselves, and their actual concern was to be 
rid of the troublesome affair. 

The Apostles were content with their vindication. They Departure 
betook themselves to the house of Lydia, and there met with phm pp 
their converts and bade them farewell. Paul and Silas 
and Timothy then took their departure, but they left Luke 
behind. He remained at Philippi, and laboured there until 
the spring of 57, when he rejoined Paul on his way to 
Jerusalem at the close of his third mission, never more to 
leave him until his ministry ended with his martyrdom at 
Rome. 2 

The missionaries proceeded westward by the Egnatian Thessa- 
Road. They passed through the towns of Amphipolis, an onica ' 
Athenian colony on the Strymon, thirty-three miles from 
Philippi, 3 and Apollonia Mygdoniae, near the eastern ex- 
tremity of Lake Bolbe and thirty miles distant from 
Amphipolis ; 4 but they stayed at neither, and the reason 
was that there was no considerable Jewish population in 
either and consequently no synagogue, 5 and where there was 
no synagogue it was difficult to win a hearing for the Gospel. 
And so they held on to Thessalonica (Salonika), which was 

1 In ver. 39 Cod. Bez. (D) has xal Tra.payev6fj.evoi fxera <plXwv ttoXXCjv eis ri]v 
<pvXaKf)v t trapeKaXecrav avrovs i^eXdelv elirdvres' 7]yvorj<rap.ev to. Kad' vp.as on iare 
dvSpes dLtcaiot. Kai e£ayay6vres irapeK&Xeaav avroiis Xtyovres' £k tjj$ iroXecos ravrris 
i^XOare p.rjTTOTe irdXiv (xvv<JTpa<p(b<nv rip.lv iiriKpa^ovres Ka6' vpwv, ' and they came 
with many friends to the prison and besought them to go out, saying, ' ' We were 
ignorant of your case, that you are righteous men." And they brought them out 
and besought them, saying, "Go out from this city, lest they again gather about 
us, clamouring against you." ' 

2 The first-personal narration (cf. xvi. 17) is here interrupted and resumed at 
xx. 5. 

3 Originally 'EiWct 'O80L or ' Nine Ways ' ; renamed Amphipolis by the Athenian 
colonists because it was almost encircled by a winding of the river, e7r' dp-cporepa 
rrepippiovroi tov 2iTpvp6vos (Thuc. I. IOO ; IV. 102). 

* Ptolem. Geogr. III. iii. 33 ; Plin. Nat. Hist. IV. 17. 

4 The reason why they settled at Thessalonica was 6ttov t)v avvayuyr] rdv 
'IovSaW, which (since ottov differs from ov as 6<xtls, quippe qui, from 6's) signifies 
* since there was a synagogue of the Jews there,' implying that there was none at 
Amphipolis or Apollonia. 



136 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

not only the capital of the second of the Roman districts but 
the chief city of all Macedonia alike in population and in 
prestige. 1 It occupied the site of the ancient Therma, 
whence the Thermaic Gulf, at the head of which the city 
stood, derived its name ; 2 and it was founded about 315 B.C. 
by Cassander, who merged the neighbouring townships in 
it and named it after his wife Thessalonica, the half-sister of 
Alexander the Great. 3 It was a free city, a self-governing 
democracy; 4 and its magistrates, were designated Politarchs. 5 
The distance betw r een Philippi and Thessalonica was a 
hundred miles, and if the missionaries travelled afoot, the 
journey, at the customary rate, would occupy five or six 
days. 6 
Ministry in There was a large and influential community of Jews in 
gogue. Thessalonica, and their activity is indicated by the number 
of ' God-fearers ' who frequented their synagogue. The 
missionaries found a lodging in the house of a Jew who 
bore the name of Jason, the Hellenistic substitute for Jesus 
or Joshua ; 7 and Paul started his ministry after his wont by 
visiting the synagogue and demonstrating from the Scrip- 
tures that the Messiah was to suffer and rise from the dead, 
and that their prophecies had been fulfilled in Jesus. And 
Cf. 1 Th. he added urgency to his appeal by proclaiming the Lord's 
Th.'il°5. 2 Second Advent and the Final Judgment — a consummation 

1 Strabo, 323 ; Luc. Asin. 46. * Herod. VII. 121. 

* Strabo, 330. 

4 Plin. Nat. Hist. IV. 17. Cf. Ac. xvii. 5 : avrotis -rrpoayayeiv els rbv Sjjfj.oi>. 

6 Cf. Ac. xvii. 6, 8. Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. 1967 (a Thessalonian inscrip- 
tion) : iro\LTapxotivTwv ^Lwirdrpov rod KXeo7rdrpas koX AovkLov Ilovriov lexovvSov 
Hovfi'Kiov <&\avlov l.afielvov ATjpLTjrpiov rod $avo~rov Ari/nrirpiov rod Ni/co7r6Xea;s 
2an\ou rod Hap/xeviCovos rod nal MevicrKOV Taiov ' Ay iWrjiov HoreiroV rafiiov rrjs 
7r6Xews Tavpov rod 'A/x/j.ias rod ical 'PqyXov. The metronymics here illustrate the 
independent status of Macedonian women (cf. p. 128). It is noteworthy that 
several of the names of the inscription were borne by Thessalonian converts — 
Secundus (cf. Ac. xx. 4), Demetrius in its shortened form of Demas (cf. Col. iv. 
14; Phm. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 10), Gaius (cf. Ac. xix. 29). The title 'politarch' 
was not peculiar to Thessalonica, since it occurs in an Egyptian papyrus. Cf. 
Oxy?-h. Pap. 745. 

6 The supposition that Amphipolis and Apollonia were the stations where 
they halted overnight, implies that they indulged in the expensive luxury of 
carriage and thus accomplished the journey in three stages of over' thirty miles 
each. 

7 Cf. p. 21. Jos. Ant. xii. v. I : 6 fxkv oZv 'Ir)<xovi 'Id<rwca iavrbv fjLcruv(>fia<rev. 



THE SFXOND MISSION 137 

which, in common with the rest of the primitive Christians, 

he regarded as imminent. 1 For three weeks 2 he continued 

his argumentation, and he achieved no small success. Some 

of the Jews were won, including Aristarchus who afterwards cf. Ac. 

proved so true and helpful a comrade to him, and also his ™ ! {v : IO 

host Jason, if indeed he be identical with the Jason who was "■ 

with him at Corinth some five or six years later; but most of 21. 

the converts belonged to the order of ' the God-fearers/ 

and it accords with the independence which women enjoyed 

in Macedonian society, that not a few of these were ladies, 

the wives of leading citizens. 3 

This success enkindled Jewish resentment, and after Jewish 
the three weeks' reasoning in the synagogue the missionaries hostlllt y- 
found its doors closed against them and betook themselves 
with the converts they had won to an active ministry among 
the Gentile population. 4 This must have continued for a 
considerable time, since ere they left the city they had cf. 1 Th. 
established an organised congregation ; and during its course v ' I2 ' I3 ' 
they endured no small hardship. It was necessary, at all 
events until the Church was organised, that they should 
earn their daily bread. More than once indeed they received Cf. Phil, 
welcome suppl j*l worn their friends at Philippi, but these 1V ' *-' l 
were insufficient, and Paul resorted to his craft of tent- 
making, toiling far into the night that he might be free for cf. 1 Th. 
his ministry during the day. "' 9 ' 

The Jews meanwhile were observing the progress of the a cry of 
Gospel with jealous eyes ; and, exasperated by its success, 
they had recourse to ignoble tactics. The market-place of 
the city was the haunt of a gang of loafers and rascals who 

1 cf. P . 153. 

2 <x&l33o.Ta rpia, either 'three Sabbaths' or 'three weeks' (cf. Lk. xviii. 2). In 
the latter case Paul attended the weekday as well as the Sabbath assemblies (cf. 
p. 94, n. 3). 

3 -yvvaiK&v re tuiu irpwTwv, not 'of the chief women,' which would be r&v re 
yvvaucuv tuip irpwTwv, but 'of the wives of the chief men.' So Cod. Bez. (D) : 
/cal ^walKes t&v irpwroji/. 

4 A distinct Gentile ministry is implied by the reading of Cod. Bez. (D) in ver. 4 : 
kclI rives eg avrCov iireia-dtjaav. kcl1 irpocreKXrjpdjdTjcrav rep ITai)Xw teal StAa (r rj didaxfi) 
•sroXXoi tcJj> aej3of.i.evojv kixI 'KWrjvup tt\tj9o$ tto\v nai ^wcanes rCov irpwruiu ovk 
6\iyat, ' And some of them were persuaded. And there cast in their lot with 
Paul and Silas many of the Worshippers and a great multitude of Gentiles and 
wives of the chief men not a few.' 



138 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

lounged about ready for any mischief ; l and the Jewish 
traders got hold of them and incited them against the 
missionaries, playing upon their political prejudices, telling 
them what had happened at Philippi, and representing the 
Gospel as a treasonable propaganda. It was the Apostle's 
preaching of the Second Advent that specially served their 
turn ; and they construed it as a prediction of the imminent 
overthrow of the Roman Empire and the enthronement of 
Jesus. This is the first appearance of a perversion which 
persisted for generations and brought no small trouble on 
the Church. It is told that during the reign of Domitian 
(a.d. 81-96), in view of the Messianic dreams of the Jews, 
an imperial edict was issued, ordering the execution of the 
descendants of King David. Information was laid against 
several peaceable Jewish husbandmen who were honoured as 
grandsons of Judas the Lord's brother, and they were cited 
before the Emperor. He was alarmed, like Herod the Great, 
when he heard of the birth of the King of the Jews, and 
he examined those supposed aspirants to his throne. On 
learning what humble folk they were and what the Kingdom 
of the Christ really was — ' not a worldly or earthly kingdom 
but a heavenly and angelic, which would come into being 
at the consummation of the age when He should come in 
glory to judge living and dead/ he recognised the baseless- 
ness of his apprehension, and dismissed them and revoked 
the edict. 2 
Securities It was thus a dangerous cry that the Jews of Thessalonica 

for good 

behaviour. 1 t q v ^y Q p a i wv #pgp a? T ivas irovypoijs, 'certain evil men of the habitues of the 
market-place,' 'the hangman boys in the market-place' (Shak. Two Gentlemen of 
Verona, iv. iv. 60). dyopatos is defined by Theophrastus in his sketch of ' The Reck- 
less Man,' 6 dwovevo-qfie'vos, Char. XVI. (vi.), as ry tfdec dyopalos ris Kal dvaaeavp- 
fiivos Kal iravToiroids, ' in character a coarse fellow, defiant of decency, ready to do 
anything ' (Jebb) ; and then further on : Kal qvk dwodoia/xd^eiv 5Z otib" &ua ttoWQp 
dyopalwv arpar^yelu, ' he does not disdain to be leader of a gang of dyopaloi ' — 
an allusion to the turbulence of the hangers-on of the market-place. Cf. Plut. 
sEmil. Paul. 38. 3 : dvdpdnrovs ayevveis Kal SedovXevKdras, dyopalovs di Kal 
Svua/meuovs oxXov crvvayayelv Kal o-irovdapx<-& xal Kpavyrj wavra irpayfiara j3id<xa(rdai. 
The Latin term is forensis. Cf. Hor. A. P. 245. Suidas defines dyopahs vovs as 
6 TravevTekrjs Kal orvp(peTU)8r)s Kal diropprjros ov8£ TretypovTUTfievos. Cf. Plat. Protag. 
347 E : tois ffv^iroaiois rots rdv <f>au\uv Kal dyopaliov dvdp&iridV) contrasted pre- 
sently with koXol KdyaBol cvfAirorai Kal 7reirai.devfj.4voi. 

Hegesippus in Eus. Eccl. Hist. III. 20. Cf. Just. M. Apol. H. pp. 58 f. (ed 
Sylburg. ). 



THE SECOND MISSION 139 

raised, and their rascals took it up and presently had the 
city in an uproar. The rabble beset the house of Jason, 
intending to seize the missionaries and deal with them after 
the lawless fashion of ' a free democracy.' Happily their 
victims were abroad, but they got hold of Jason and several 
other Christians, and dragged them before the Politarchs, 
vociferating their charge of treason. It was an ugly charge, 
and no Roman magistrate durst treat it lightly. The 
Politarchs doubtless knew something of the Gospel from those 
ladies of their circle who had embraced it. At all events 
they were plainly well-disposed toward the missionaries and 
rated the charge at its proper worth. They durst not set 
it aside, but they adopted the mildest possible course and 
exacted security from Jason and his fellow-victims for the 
good behaviour of themselves and the accused. 1 

It was a shrewd settlement. It inflicted no injury on the Departure 
missionaries or their sureties, and at the same time it satisfied s r a °Sii ca es 
the accusers and safeguarded the Politarchs from the sus- 
picion of misprision of treason. It would indeed disappoint 
the Jews that their troublers had come off so lightly ; yet 
they were thus far gratified that their annoyance was ended. 
It was impossible for the missionaries to remain in the city 
and expose Jason and his fellow-sponsors to the penalty 
which they would incur in the certain event of a fresh out- 
break of Jewish animosity. They must forthwith take their 
departure, and their converts readily acquiesced. They 
waited only until nightfall, and under covert of darkness, 
that they might escape observation and molestation, they 
quitted Thessalonica. 

It was about the beginning of the year 51 when they arrived At Ber«a. 
at Thessalonica, and, in view of all that had transpired, it 
would be about the month of May when they took their 
departure. Diverging from the Egnatian Road, they travelled 
some forty miles westward to Bercea, an important and 
populous town at the base of Mount Bermius. 2 Immediately 

1 \a.p6i>Tes t6 Ikuuov, satisdatione accepter a Latin phrase. Cf. Mk. xv. 15. 
Chrysostom {In I Epist. ad Thess. 1) supposes that Jason and the others were 
pledged for the appearance of the Apostles to stand their trial ; but in that case 
the latter would not have stolen away and left their friends to suffer in their stead. 

* Strabo, 330 ; Luc. A sin. 34. 



Ho LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

on their arrival they repaired on the Sabbath Day to the 
Reason- synagogue, and their experience there was a pleasing 
thcTewi° f surprise. Whatever the reason, the Jews of Beroea ex- 
hibited a singular reasonableness. 1 They listened to Paul's 
demonstration of the Messiahship of Jesus, and so deepiy 
were they impressed that they daily examined the Scriptures 
in order to verify his contention. Their study carried con- 
viction to their minds, and many of them professed faith. 
Here as at Thessalonica not a few ladies of rank were 
numbered among ' the God-fearers/ and not only did they 
join the ranks of the converts themselves but they brought 
their husbands with them. 2 It was a gracious and unique 
experience. The Jews were keenly interested in the Gospel, 
and diligently investigated its scriptural evidence ; and even 
where conviction was lacking, there was no hostility, and the 
missionaries continued in the fellowship of the synagogue. 
Enemies It was a peaceful and prosperous ministry, and it must 
saionica. es have lasted some time, probably two or three months at 
the least. Suddenly, however, it was rudely interrupted. 
Tidings of the missionaries' doings reached Thessalonica 
and roused the indignation of the Jews there. They hastened 
to Bercea and repeated the tactics which had proved so 
successful in their own city, raising the cry of treason and 
exciting the fury of the mob. Paul was the special object 
of their resentment, and it would have gone hardly with 
him had he been arraigned a second time on that perilous 
charge. His one chance lay in immediate flight ; but he was 
narrowly watched, and it was only by a ruse that he effected 
Paul's his escape. His friends supplied him with an escort, and 
Athens. ° sent him away from the city in the direction of the coast 
as though he intended taking ship at Methone or Pydna. 
His enemies would observe his movement, and they could 
easily have overtaken him and arrested him ere he set sail ; 
but, once clear of the city, his guides turned southward and 
conducted him overland through Thessaly until they brought 
him to Athens. 3 There he was secure from molestation, and 

1 Chrysostom explains eiyevearepoi as iirteiKiarepoi, 'more sweetly reasonable.' 
a dvSpQv, not merely 'men' but, after the analogy of ver. 4, 'husbands.' 
8 According to the reading £ws eirl ttjv 6a\a<r<ra.v (XABE), usque ad mare, 
'as far as the sea,' there was no stratagem : they actually took ship and sailed to 



THE SECOND MISSION 141 

they left him and returned home. His destination had been 
unknown when he fled from Bercea, but his guides carried 
a message to Silas and Timothy, informing them where he 
was and bidding them join him with all speed. 



V x Thes. 



17-111- 5 ; 

Ac. xvii. 



SOJOURN AT ATHENS l6 r 34; 



1 Cor. i. 
16, xvi. 15, 



Paul had been driven from Macedonia, but he still regarded Persecu- 
that country as his appointed sphere. He had been pro- Ma Ce " 
videntially summoned thither, and his labours had proved donia - 
abundantly successful. Much remained to be accomplished, 
and his hope was that, when Silas and Timothy arrived, they 
might report that the storm had blown over and he was free 
to return and resume his interrupted ministry. In due 
course they appeared, but they brought disappointing 
tidings. The animosity of those Thessalonian Jews who had 
pursued him to Bercea, was unabated ; indeed it had rather 
increased. They had returned to their own city, and they 
were harassing his converts there, rivalling the malignity of 
their Judaean confreres in the days of the first persecution cf. 1 Th. 
which had begun with the martyrdom of Stephen and " I4_I ' 
which, as he would recall with crimson shame, he had him- 
self inspired and directed. 

It was impossible for him meanwhile to return, since his Return of 
appearance in Macedonia w r ould have exasperated his Timothy 
enemies and aggravated the distress of his friends. But 3° on f ace " 
his heart was anxious for the latter. They were beset by 
ruthless and unscrupulous adversaries, bent on detaching 

Athens. But most probably ews is an assimilation to ewj 'kdrjvQiv in the following 
verse, and the true reading is cLs e-wl rr\v daXacxaav (HLP), ' to go ostensibly to the 
sea' (cf. Moulton's Winer, p. 771). (1) rjyayov &us 'Adrjvwu, 'they led him as far 
as Athens,' suggests not a sea- voyage but an overland journey. (2) In ver. 15 
Cod. Bez. (D) after ews 'AQrjvQv has iraprfkdev (cf. xvi. 8) 5£ ttjv QecrcraXiaw 
tKbAvdr) yap eh avrovs Kypvijai rov \6yov, ' and he passed over Thessaly ; for he 
was hindered from preaching the Word among them,' i.e., he hurried through 
the country without staying to preach at any of the towns en route, as Larissa 
and Pharsalus. So Beza, Grotius, Bengel, Neander. 



142 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

them from the Faith either by terrorism or by cajolery ; and 
his sympathy was accentuated by the dread of seeing his 
work undone. He could not abandon them to their fate 
without an effort to save them ; and he and Silas decided 
that, loath as they were to part with him, Timothy should 
repair to Thessalonica in order to encourage the persecuted 
Christians and hold them steadfast in the face alike of 
threats and of blandishments. It was a heavy charge for 
a mere lad, and Silas would more fittingly have undertaken 
it ; but it would have been impolitic for him to appear at 
Thessalonica, since he had borne a leading part in the 
mission and was hardly less obnoxious to the persecutors 
than Paul. So they despatched Timothy, whether overland 
through Thessaly or by a coasting vessel. Meanwhile in- 
deed the trouble had its seat at Thessalonica, but it was 
likely to spread ; and presently Silas also took his departure 
for Macedonia. His destination is not expressly stated, but 
it can hardly have been other than Philippi ; and this 
cf. Phil, probability is confirmed by the speedy arrival from the ever 
■v. 15- generous Philippians of a welcome contribution to Paul's 

necessities. 1 
Paul alone Thus the Apostle was left alone at Athens. He had no 
at Athens, thought of preaching there, since Macedonia was his field 
and he was waiting anxiously for his recall thither. It 
proved, however, that the seeming interruption of his 
purpose was in truth a providential dispensation, the con- 
straint of an unseen Hand conducting him to a larger 
ministry. Athens, pre-eminent in literature, art, and philo- 
sophy, was pre-eminent also in religion. 2 She rivalled Rome 
in her hospitality to alien cults. 3 The beautiful city was 
crowded with temples, shrines, altars, and images, which met 
the Apostle's eye at every turn as he strayed in street and 
The market-place yearning wistfully for Macedonia. His soul 

heartof was s ti rre d- He was touched by the pity of it all, and one 
heathen- spectacle especially moved him— an altar bearing the in- 

ciom. 

1 Cf. Append. I. 

* Cf . Soph. (Ed. Col. 260 : el rds y 'Afl^as 0curi 6eo<re^cffTdras / elvai. 
Lycurg. adv. Leocrat. : ev yap tcrre, S> 'Adqvdioi, Sti ir\e?<rrov dia^pere tQp &\\<»>v 
i,v6pw7rii}v rep irpos re tovs dtovs evcefiQs ex etv ' 

3 Strabo, 471 : 'Adrjvaloi 5' &<TTep irepi to. S,\\a <f>i\o&vovvT€t 8ca.Te\ov<TLV f 
•ih-w /ecu irtpl tovs Beovs. On Roman syncretism cf. p. 12. 



THE SECOND MISSION 143 

scription to an unknown god. Such altars were common 
in the Greek world, 1 but this was the first he had encoun- 
tered, and it spoke to him of the heathen heart's yearning 
after the Living and True God. He could not resist the 
mute appeal. He knew the blessed secret which would 
satisfy that blind desire, and he must proclaim it. 

Nor was opportunity lacking. There were Jews at Reasoning 
Athens, and he visited the synagogue and reasoned with ^>guea" m i 
the congregation, which as usual included ' God-fearers.' It ,T |^ et " 
was, however, the general need that had stirred his com- 
passion and that he would fain satisfy ; and at Athens there 
was a peculiar facility in appealing to the populace. It was 
the historic fashion of the philosophers to discourse in the 
market-place, and Paul followed their example and con- 
versed with the citizens who daily frequented that intel- 
lectual exchange, less intent on business than on the dis- Cf. Ac. 
cussion of the latest political or metaphysical question. 2 

A novel doctrine was always welcome, and the Apostle's Jealousy of 
message excited keen interest, all the more that tidings of sophers°~ 
the stir which it had occasioned in Macedonia had reached Cf. 1 Th. 

i 7~o 

the city. His popularity, however, quickly involved him in 
embarrassment. The chief schools of philosophy at that 
period were the Epicurean and the Stoic, and their professors 
viewed him as an unauthorised invader of their province and, 
forgetting for the moment their mutual jealousy, made 
common cause against him. Some of them sneered at him 
and affected to regard him as an unintelligible quack. 
■ What,' they asked, ' would this charlatan 3 like to make 

1 Cf. p. 11. 

2 This disposition was the bane of Athens. Cf. Demosth. Phil. I. 10. 

8 crTepfioXdyos, ' seed-picker,' was properly a little bird which picked up the seed 
as it fell from the hand of the sower (cf. Mt. xiii. 4), and it had two metaphorical 
uses : (1) a thief who lived by what he could pick up, like Shakespeare's Autoly- 
cus, ' a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles ' ( Winter's Tale, IV. iii. 26) ; so a 
worthless rascal ; (2) an intellectual charlatan whose learning was second-hand 
and undigested ; cf. Browning, An Epistle : ' Karshish, the picker-up of learning's 
crumbs.' The latter is the meaning here. Cf. Eustath. on Horn. Od. v. 490 : 
ovtu TirpaTTTai /cat rb cirepixokoyetv iirl t&v a\a$ovevofx£vuv d/xe065«s £ttl fj.adf]fiacnv 
£k tivwv icapa.K0V<rii6.T(t)v. . . . 6 hk tcvplw, <paal, cwepnoXbyos ical ffirepfiov6/j.os 
eldbt £<mv bpviov Xwpu/Atvov ra <rir^p^ara, i£ off 'AttikoI <rirep/Ao\6yovs £k&\ovv 
tovs rrepl ifnr6pia ko.1 dyopas diarpifiovTas Sia rb dvaX^yeadai ra £k tQv (popr'uav, 
(p*<rlv t avopphvTO, ko.1 dta^gv. £k tovtov tt)V dirty iXayxavov K\rjffip ko.1 oi oidevbt 
\6yov Afiot. 



i 4 4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

out ? ' Others took a more serious view. The burden of 
the Apostle's discourse had been the Lord's Passion, Re- 
surrection, and Return to judgment ; and, philosophers as 
they were, they grossly misconstrued his language. ' Re- 
surrection ' is in Greek Anastasis, and they took this for a 
charge of proper noun. They supposed it was the name of a goddess, 
!ng strange an d when Paul spoke of ' Jesus and Anastasis/ they fancied 
divinities, that he meant, after the heathen fashion, a couple of deities. 1 
* He seems,' was their conclusion, ' to be a proclaimer of 
strange divinities.' 
The Court And this would have been a grave offence — the very 
Jjj^f offence which had proved fatal to Socrates, who was arraigned 
opagos. on the charge of ' corrupting the young men and not recog- 
nising the gods whom the city recognised, but other novel 
divinities.' 2 The court which took cognisance of such cases 
was the Council of the Areiopagos. This ancient and august 
tribunal, though it existed long ere his time, received its 
historic constitution from Solon. Its chief function was 
the investigation and adjudication of cases of homicide, but 
its jurisdiction extended also to such lesser offences as sacri- 
lege, treason, and conspiracy ; and it exercised a censorial 
supervision of the civic life, reprimanding and punishing 
immorality, indolence, and prodigality. 3 It regulated the 
education of the young and controlled the introduction of 
novel forms of worship ; 4 and thus it had jurisdiction in the 
case of Paul, who was charged with ' proclaiming strange 
divinities.' 
Arraign- jfie prestige and emolument of the philosophers were 

merit of r ° * r 

Paul. menaced, and in their resentment dignity and courtesy alike 
were forgotten. They accosted him with a sneering affec- 
tation of deference and humility. ' Can we,' they inquired 

1 Chrys. : Kal yap ' rrjv avavraaiv* de6f nva elvai ivSp-ifov, &re cIw06t€S Kal 
Brfkeias chfieiv. 

8 Plat. Apol. 24 B ; Xen. Mem. 1. i. I; Diog. Laert. II. 40. 

* Cf. Demosth. adv. Aristocr. ; Isid. Areop. 149. 

4 iiridera as distinguished from irarpia, the ancient rites of the state. Cf. 
auidas under £7rideT0vs copras : eXeyero de Trap' avrois Kal &Wa iiridera nva, 8<ra 
1X7) irarpia 5vra i) £i- apdov ndyov /3ov\t] iSi/ca^e. Just. M. {Ad Grec. Cohort. , ed. 
Sylburg. p. 20 c) quotes a tradition that Plato learned the doctrine of the unity 
of God from the Jewish Law, but fear of the Areiopagos prevented his mention- 
ing the name of Moses. 



THE SECOND MISSION 145 

' understand what this novel teaching is that you are 
talking of ? They are strange matters that you are intro- 
ducing to our ears ; so we wish to understand what these 
mean/ And they took hold of him and brought him into 
the court. 

The seat of the Council was the Areiopagos or Hill of Ares His 
to the w r est of the Acropolis. 1 Its proceedings were open, 2 and 
thus, when Paul rose to answer the charge which had been 
preferred against him, he was confronted not merely by the 
judges but by a throng of curious spectators. He availed 
himself of the opportunity, and his defence was really a 
concio ad populum, a commendation of the Gospel to the 
hungry heart of heathendom. 

xvii. 22 'Athenians,' he said, 'at every turn your exceptional 

23 religiousness 3 is before my eyes. I was passing through 

your city and inspecting your sacred institutions, and I 

found among them an altar bearing the inscription to an 

1 6 dpeLos Tr&yos meant properly the hill where the court had its seat (cf. Luc. 
Attach. 19), but it was used also to denote the court itself, : q povXr) 19 e£ dpeiov 
irayov, or the judges, 01 'Apeioirayirai (cf. Alciphr. Pp. III. 72 : ds avrov 6 apetos 
irdyos dirofiXtircvo-iv. Cic. ad Attic. Ep. I. 14 : ' Senatus &peios irdyos. Nihil 
constantius, nihil severius, nihil fortius.' Sen. De Tranqaill. Anim. 3: 'Ario- 
pagus, religiosissimum judicium'). When it is said that Paul 'stood iv fxicrcp rod 
dpdov irayov,' it is meant that he stood, not ' in the midst of the hill ' but ' in the 
midst of the court,' ev ptaui rrjs povXrjs rfys tj- dpeiov irayov. 

8 This is proved by a law prohibiting interruption of the proceedings by laughter 
or applause. 

3 In classical Greek Seicndaipuv means ' religious. ' Cf . Arist. Pol. v. 1 1 : 
A ruler should be conspicuously diligent in his duties toward the gods, since his 
subjects have less fear of unjust treatment idv 5ci<ndaipova vop-lfacriv dvcu. rbv 
dpxovra. koX (ppovrlfriv twv 6eQv. Xen. Cyrop. in. iii. 58. In later Greek it 
acquired the bad sense of 'superstitious,' already found in Theophr. Char, xxviil 
(xvi) : 7/ deLO-iSaijiioi'ia oo^eiev &i> elvai SeCkLa irpos rb Sai/uoviov. Cf. Plut. De 
Superstit. I : Ignorance regarding the gods divides at its source into two channels, 
engendering in the hard soil of refractory natures atheism (dfleor^s) and in the 
moist soil of softer natures superstition {deio-idaipLovia). Phil. Quod Deus sit Immut. 
35 : As fortitude {dvdpela) is the mean between audacity {dpdaos) and cowardice 
(<5ei\i'a), temperance {o-wcppoavvq) between luxury {paOvpila) and parsimony 
(<pei8w\La), prudence {(ppovqais) between craft {iravovpyla) and folly (pwpia), so 
piety {e-vai^eia) is the mean between superstition {deicri.daip.ovla) and impiety « 

(dcr^Saa). Max. Tyr. xx. 6 : 6 p.ev evae'firjs <pl\os 6e(p, 6 8e SeLaidalpuv t<6\a£ 6eov. 
The term, however, still retained a neutral sense (cf. Moulton and Milligan, 
Vocab.) ; and so it is employed here and in xxv. 19 — the only N. T. instances. 
It is inconceivable that the Apostle should have opened his conciliatory speech 
with an insulting epithet. 
K 



146 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

unknown god. What, then, you are worshipping without 
m. ver is knowing it, this it is that I am " proclaiming " to you. 

24 ' The God who made the world and everything that is in 

it, He is Lord of heaven and earth ; and He does not dwell 
«5 in sanctuaries which hands have made, nor is He ministered 

to by human hands " as though He needed anything," 1 since 

it is He who gives every one life and breath and everything. 
26 And He made of one stuff 2 every nation of men to dwell 

everywhere on the face of the earth, ordaining fixed seasons 
27 and the boundaries wherein they should dwell, that they 

might seek God if so be they might grope for Him 3 and 

find Him, although He is all the while not far from each one 
*8 of us. " For it is in Him that we live and move and are/' as 

indeed some of your poets have said ; " for we are indeed 
29 His offspring." 4 Since then we are God's offspring, we 

ought not to suppose that the Deity is like a thing of gold or 

silver 5 or a stone, a carving of man's art and imagination. 

30 ' Now though God overlooked the times when they knew 
no better, His present charge to men is that every one every- 

31 where should repent, inasmuch as He has set a day on which 
He will soon judge the world in righteousness before the 
tribunal of a Man whom He has ordained ; and He has given 
proof of it to every one by raising Him from the dead/ 

Derisive Here the Apostle's argument has reached its goal, and he 
is about to proclaim the Christian message. All that he has 
hitherto said is a mere paving of the way, and it is indeed a 
skilful prelude. The charge against him was religious 
innovation, and he meets it by claiming that, as St. Chry- 
sostom puts it, he was ' introducing nothing strange, nothing 
novel,' but simply asserting the truth which, on their own 
confession, his hearers had been blindly groping after. 
His attitude is at once generous and tactful. He does not, 
after the Jewish fashion, denounce the pagan religion as an 
unholy thing ; rather, in the spirit of his large-hearted 

1 Paul here quotes the Epicurean doctrine (Lucr. II. 644-51). Cf. the Pytha- 
gorean dictum : ocrns rifxa rbv debv us irpo<r5e6p.evov, offros \4\tjdev olSfievos iavrbv 
rod deou clvai Kpehrova. Similarly the Eclectic Demonax excused himself for not 
sacrificing to Athene, ovdt yap detcdat avrrjv tuv ira.fi £\xov 6v<riuv vireXa [ifiavov 
(Luc. Dent. 11). 

1 e£ iv6s NAB, 'of one common material' (cf. Gen. ii. 7). No definition is 
required — ai',aaroj (DEHLP) or avdpunov (Blass). Cf. Heb. ii. II. 

3 \pr[\a<pa,v , of a blind man feeling a thing to make out what it was (cf. ^Esop. 
Fab. 57, ed. Halm) or groping his way (cf. Dt. xxviii. 29 lxx.). 

* Cf. p. 24. 6 NAE xpv<rl(f ?i dpyvplw. 



interrup- 
tion. 



THE SECOND MISSION 147 

master, the Rabbi Gamaliel, 1 he recognises the germ of 
truth which it contained. It was a veritable prceparatio 
evangelica ; and he seeks to persuade his hearers by appealing 
not only to the familiar testimonies of their poets, Epimenides 
and Aratus, but to the distinctive doctrines of the Epicurean 
and Stoic philosophies — the Epicurean doctrine of the divine cf. vers, 
remoteness and independence of human ministration and 25, 2 ' 
the Stoic doctrine of Providence. 2 Just as in the synagogue 
of Pisidian Antioch he had sought to conciliate the Jews by 
an historical review, proving that the Gospel was the con- 
summation of their ancestral faith, 3 so now in the Court of 
the Areiopagos he seeks to commend it to the Greeks by 
proving it the fulfilment of their agelong yearning after 
God. The historical argument was appreciatively received 
in both instances, but its application was displeasing. When 
he pointed to the conclusion that their ceremonial Law was 
superseded, the Jews caught fire ; and when he indicated 
what he meant by anastasis, the Athenians were moved to 
derision. To their minds the idea of the Resurrection was 
preposterous, 4 and some of them greeted it with scoffs, 
while others, more courteous but no less contemptuous, told 
him that they would hear him on some other occasion. They 
had no leisure for such folly. Solvuntur risu tabula. 

It was an ignominious denouement, but it was so far Termina- 
satisfactory that it ended the proceedings and relieved the Pauls' 
Apostle from further legal annoyance. The case was laughed JJJJJ^jJJj 3 ' at 
out of court, and he was set at liberty. Ridicule is fatal to a 
cause, and now that he was the jest of the keen-witted city, 
he could preach there no longer. His ministry had been 
brief, lasting perhaps about a month, 5 and it had achieved 
little. Yet it was not entirely fruitless. His converts were 
few, but one of them at least was a personage of importance His con- 
— Dionysius, a member of the Council of the Arieopagos. 6 v 

1 Cf. p. 28. 

1 Cf . Epict. I. v : xepl irpouolas ; Sen. De Providentia. 

8 Cf. pp. 92 ff. * Cf. p. 311. • Cf. Append. I. 

1 Tradition makes Dionysius the first bishop of Athens. Cf. Eus. Hist. Eccl. 
in. 4; IV. 23. His name is invested with a fictitious celebrity by the ascription 
to him of those remarkable works, The Heavenly Hierarchy and The Divint 
Aawes, whence St. Thomas Aquinas derived so much of his theology. Cf. 
V> esxolt's essay on Dionysius the Areopagite in his Religious Thought in tfo Wsst. 



148 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Of the others only one is named — a woman called Damans. 
The name is apparently a variant of Damalis, which signifies 
' a heifer ' ; and since it is the sort of designation which was 
commonly borne by Athenian courtesans, and women of 
good fame lived in close seclusion, 1 it is probable that she 
belonged to that numerous and unhappy order ; and it 
may be taken as an evidence of her subsequent devotion 
that she was counted worthy of particular mention. 
Stephana It appears that Paul won at Athens another convert who 
of connth. k as j e ft an honourable name, though, since he was not an 
Athenian, it does not appear in the record of the Athenian 
ministry. Four years later, in his correspondence with the 
i Cor. xvi. Church at Corinth, he mentions one of its leading members, 
I5 ' Stephanas, and terms him and his household ' the first- 

fruits ' of his labours in the Province of Achaia. Stephanas 
was a Corinthian, but evidently he had been sojourning at 
Athens and had there encountered the Apostle and been 
won for Christ. It happened after the departure of Silas 
cf. i Cor. and Timothy when Paul w T as at Athens alone, since he had 
baptised Stephanas with his own hands — an office which, 
Cf. jo.iv.a. like the Master, he was not accustomed to discharge, 
cf. i Cor. Preaching was his business, and he left the administration 
of baptism to his colleagues, especially, it seems, 2 to his 
attendant. 
Reasons Stephanas proved a loyal and generous friend in after 
ture. years, and it was a merciful providence which had brought 

xvi. X i5-i7. nim m to the Apostle's life at this juncture. Athens was no 
longer endurable ; and there were two special reasons which 
(i) Faux constrained Paul to take his departure. 3 One was the shame 
defence. ls of his ignominious failure, aggravated by bitter self-reproach. 
In his speech before the Council of the Areiopagos he had 
committed what he now recognised as a fatal error. His 
cf. 2 cor. mind had been ' corrupted from its simplicity toward 
Christ.' He had forgotten that faith's best array is ' not 
Cf. i cor. men's wisdom but God's power,' and had attempted to meet 
philosophy with philosophy and win his hearers by ' per- 

1 Cf. Becker, Charities, pp. 405 ff., 248 f. 
• Cf. p. 79- 

a It is significant that the same word (xw^ecflcu) is used of Paul's departure 
from Athens and the expulsion of the Jews from Rome (cf. xviii. 1, 2). 



u. 1.5. 



THE SFXOND MISSION 149 

tuasive words of wisdom.' It had proved a disastrous 
blunder, and he determined that he would never repeat it. 
Thenceforward he would eschew 'lofty speech and wisdom* 
and ' announce God's testimony,' ' knowing nothing except 
Jesus as Christ and that a crucified Christ,' and relying on the 
' demonstration of the Spirit and of power. ' He would fain quit 
the scene of his failure and make a new beginning elsewhere. 
And he had another motive. He had been exhausted by 
those eager months of travel and preaching and controversy 
and alarm ; and as he fretted his heart at Athens with (2) sick 
anxiety for his converts in Macedonia, he fell sick. It was ne 
a recurrence of his chronic malady ; and while he languished 
alone and despised in the gay city, ' in weakness and fear 
and much trembling,' his thoughts turned to Stephanas, and Ct 1 cm 
he resolved to betake himself to Corinth and cast himself l ' 3 ' 
on the care of that kindly friend. It was a convenient 
retreat, no farther remote than Athens from Macedonia, 
which he still regarded as his appointed sphere and whence 
he was eagerly expecting the return of his colleagues with 
the welcome tidings that tranquillity had been restored and 
he was free to resume his interrupted ministry. Thither 
therefore he repaired, probably, in his enfeebled condition, 
taking ship across the Saronic Gulf and landing at the port 
of Cenchreae. 



* ■»■ Ac. xviii. 

1-4 ; I Th. ; 
Ac. xviii. 

MINISTRY AT CORINTH s-^^Th.; 

Ac. xviii. 

Corinth was the commercial and political capital of the Orinth. 
Roman Province of Achaia, and her prosperity was largely 
due to her position on the narrow isthmus between the 
Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs. The rounding of Cape Malea, 
the southernmost promontory of Greece, was a perilous 
adventure. ' When you round Malea/ ran the proverb, 1 
' forget your home.' Hence ships making the voyage 
between Italy and Asia were accustomed to shun the cruel 

1 Strabo, 378 : MaXtau 8Z Kd/xxj/as iirikadov rw ohaSe. 



ISO LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

headland with its treacherous tides and restless billows by 
steering up the Corinthian Gulf and putting in at the harbour 
of Lechaeum, where they either unloaded or, if they were 
small enough, were hauled on rollers across the Isthmus to 
Schoenus and there relaunched. 1 This brought Corinth an 
enormous commerce, and her revenue was not a little 
augmented by the crowds which frequented the Isthmian 
Games. 2 From the earliest days she was distinguished as 
' the wealthy Corinth ' ; 3 but this unhappily was not her 
sole notoriety. On the adjacent Acrocorinthus stood the 
famous temple of Aphrodite with upwards of a thousand 
courtesan votaries, who plied their traffic in the city, chiefly 
with the shipmasters, enriching the temple by the ruin of 
their victims and occasioning a proverb that ' it was not every 
man who could afford the voyage to Corinth.' 4 Though 
surpassed in literary and philosophic fame by her brilliant 
neighbour Athens, she was by no means barren in intellectual 
renown ; and she was distinguished in statecraft and still 
more in art, especially, like the adiacent town of Sicyon, 
in painting, statuary, and bronze-work. 5 

A heavy calamity had befallen Corinth in the year 146 B.C., 
when she was plundered and burned to the ground by the 
Roman army under Lucius Mummius ; but she had been 
restored in 44 B.C. by Julius Caesar, who made her a Roman 
colony with the title colonia laus julia corinthus and 
settled in her a large body of Roman freemen. 6 Her natural 
advantages had facilitated the recovery of her former pro- 
sperity, and in the Apostle's day she was once more the 
emporium of Greece. The Roman colonists were the pre- 

1 Strabo, 369, 378, 380. 

2 Strabo, 378. Cf. note on 1 Cor. ix. 24, p. 275. 

a Cf. Horn. //. II. 570 : atyveibv re Kbpivdov. Pind. 01. XIII. 4 : rav dXpia? 
'Kbpivdov. Thuc. 1. 13. 

4 Strabo, 378 : ov iraurbs avSpbs is Kbpivdov gad' 6 tt\ovs. Hot. Epist. I. xvii. 
36 : ' Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum.' KopivOidfecrdat. was synonym- 
ous with eraipeiv, ' play the harlot ' ; and in Shakespeare's day ' a Corinthian ' meant 
a roysterer — 'a lad of mettle, a good boy, by the Lord' (1 King Henry IF, 
II. iv. 12). 

6 Strabo, 382 ; Verg. Georg. 11. 464. 

6 Strabo, 381. The victory of Mummius was disgraced by atrocious vandalism. 
Polybius (xi.. 7) tells how he saw priceless pictures flung on the ground and 
ioldicrs using them as dice boards. " 



THE SECOND MISSION 151 

dominant element in her population ; x but the majority of 
the citizens were Greeks, and there was also, as in every 
commercial centre, a considerable community of Jews. 

On his arrival at Corinth the Apostle would be kindly Associa- 
welcomed by Stephanas, but, with that delicacy which always AquUa 
characterised him, he would not trespass on his grateful ^ Pns " 
convert's hospitality. Despite his weakness he presently cr a cor, 
addressed himself to the winning of his livelihood, and it was xi - *• 
his good fortune to encounter a Jewish fellow-craftsman. 
This was the tent-maker Aquila. He was a native of Pontus 
on the Euxine, but he had migrated thence to Rome, and 
the previous year had been driven from the Imperial Capital 
by the anti- Jewish edict of the Emperor Claudius. 2 Quite 
recently he and his wife Priscilla 3 had settled at Corinth, 
which, as the capital of Achaia and the headquarters of the 
military administration in the Province, afforded abundant 
employment for practitioners of his craft. Christianity was 
already established at Rome, 4 and since there is no suggestion 
of their conversion by Paul, it is probable that Aquila and 
Priscilla were already Christians. Community of race and 
faith and calling drew them to each other, and the Apostle 
took a lodging in their house 5 and worked with Aquila. 

He had neither time nor strength for the prosecution of Evangeii- 

C3.1 1U3.C- 

an active ministry ; nevertheless he did what he could, tivity. 
Each Sabbath he attended the synagogue and addressed 
the congregation ; but he studiously refrained from opening 
a serious discussion. 6 That, as it seemed to him, would have 

1 It is noteworthy how many of the Corinthian converts had Roman names. 
Cf. Crispus and Gaius (i Cor. i. 14), Fortunatus (xvi. 17), Tertius and Quartus 
(Rom. xvi. 22, 23), Titius Justus (Ac. xviii. 7). 

8 Cf. p. 131. 

3 A diminutive of Prisca (cf. Rom. xvi. 3 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 19 ; 2 Tim. iv. 19). Cf. 
Drusa and Drusilla, Livia and Livilla, Claudia and Claudilla, Tertia and Tertulla, 
Quarta and Quartilla. 

* Cf. p. 506. The language of Suetonius {Claud. 25 : ' Judseos impulsore 
Chresto,' a common spelling of 'Christo') seems to imply that it was Messianic 
fermentation that occasioned the expulsion, and this may have been occasioned 
by controversy between Jews and Christians. The Christians were in Roman eyes 
merely a Jewish sect, and they would share the expulsion. 

5 tlicvzv irap' abrois, cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 449. 

8 In ver.4 Cod.Bez.(D) has dairopevSfievos 5e ^Isttju <rvvaywyty Karairav <rdfifiaTov 
SieXiyero /ecu ivrtdeis rb 6vofxa tov Ki'ptov 'I?/<roP, Zircidev 8& ov pMvov 'IovScu'owr 
d\\d koX "EWrjvas, ' And going into the synagogue every Sabbath, he would 



152 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

been futile, since he was expecting the arrival of Silas and 
Timothy with tidings that the way was open for his return to 
Macedonia. He was only a temporary sojourner at Corinth, 
and he would not engage there in an enterprise which he 
must presently abandon. He contented himself therefore 
with seeking quietly to influence all whom he encountered, 
Jews and Gentiles alike, as opportunity presented itself. 
So he continued for several weeks, 1 and then the situation 
Arrival of changed. His colleagues arrived from Macedonia. Silas 
deputies 11 came from PhiUppi, and it seems that he did not come alone. 
and a con- Several deputies of the Philippian Church accompanied him, 
from conveying not only its greetings to the Apostle but a generous 

Phdippi. contribution. This was both welcome and opportune. It 
xi. 9. not only assured him of the undiminished affection of his 
friends but relieved him in his weakness from the burden of 
daily toil and set him free for the prosecution of his proper 
vocation, the ministry of the Word. 
Timothy's Timothy also arrived from Thessalonica. He came alone, 
fromThes- but he brought a letter from the Thessalonian Presbyters, 
sal th nica informing the Apostle of the progress of events in their 
letter. midst and craving his counsel. 2 It was indeed a distressful 
Cf. 1 Th. communication. The persecution not merely continued but 
had waxed so fierce that it matched the cruel tragedies which 
had been enacted in Judaea. It was grievous intelligence for 
the Apostle, dashing his fond hope of an immediate return to 
Macedonia ; yet it was accompanied by a gladdening assur- 
er Hi. 6-8. ance : the Church had stood firm, loyal to the Faith and 

constant in her affection for him and his colleagues. 
Troubles Had this been all, there would have been no need for a 
JJnTca? sa ^tter. Timothy, young and inexperienced though he was, 
could have told the Apostle of the sufferings of the Thessa- 
lonians and conveyed to him the assurance of their stead- 
fastness. But difficult and perplexing questions had arisen 
requiring his counsel ; and that he might understand these 

reason, introducing also the name of the Lord Jesus ; and he would persuade not 
only Jews but also Gentiles.' The imperf. iireidev signifies merely 'sought to 
persuade,' whether he succeeded or not. 

1 Cf . Kara irav <rd/3/3arop , ' Sabbath after Sabbath. ' 

* The evidence lies in the Apostle's frequent references in the course of his 
letter to the Thessalonian communication. Cf. Rendel Harris, A Study in Letter- 
•writing, in Expositor, September 1898. 



THE SECOND MISSION 153 

and handle them effectively, it seemed fit to the embarrassed 
Presbyters that they should be expressly formulated and 
clearly defined. And so they wrote him a letter. 

The trouble had two sources. One was Jewish calumnia- (0 Jewish 
tion of the Apostle's doctrine and conduct. It was alleged tion. 
that his Gospel was not merely heretical but immoral. It 
was antinomian. Its proclamation of salvation by faith in 
Christ apart from the works of the Law was a relaxation of 
moral obligation. His character too was assailed. In the 
course of his ministry at Thessalonica he had repeatedly 
received monetary aid from the generous Philippians ; 1 and 
his enemies fastened upon this circumstance and, notwith- 
standing that he had toiled among them for his daily bread, 
they accused him of preying upon his dupes and making a 
trade of religion. These — ' error, uncleanness, and trickery ' cf. ii. 3. 
— were the odious offences which were laid to his charge. 

And there was another trouble which was still more serious, (2) Expcc- 
inasmuch as its source lay within the Church. It was a Jhe°Lord's 
universal persuasion of the primitive Christians that the immediate 
Lord's Return was imminent and He would appear in glory 
ere that generation had passed away ; 2 and the Apostle 
shared it. In his preaching at Thessalonica he had pro- 
claimed the impending consummation, and when the storm 
of persecution broke upon them, his converts consoled 
themselves with the prospect of a speedy deliverance. 

The issue was disastrous, and it has repeatedly recurred. An historic 
One instance is especially conspicuous. The course of history paial 
was viewed as a succession of ' ages,' and the early Christian 
imagination, proceeding on the Jewish notion that the world 
was only some five thousand years old when the Saviour 
came, saw in the story of Creation a programme of the future 
and recognised six ages corresponding to the six days of 
creation. The first, according to St. Augustine, 3 extended 
form Adam to the Flood, the second from Noah to Abraham, 
the third from Abraham to David, the fourth from David 
to the Babylonian Captivity, the fifth from the Captivity 
to the Saviour's Birth, and the sixth from the Saviour's 

1 Cf. p. 137. 

i Cf . The Days of His Flesh, pp. xxix f . 

* Qucest injud. xlix ; Enarr. in Psalm. XC/f, I. 



i 5 4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Birth to the end of the world. And just as the six days ol 
creation were succeeded by a Day of Rest, so the six ages 
cf. Rev, will be followed by the Millennium, a thousand years of 
peace. By and by the idea arose that each of the past ages 
had lasted a thousand years ; and hence it was reckoned 
that the year 1000 a.d. would terminate the current age 
and witness the Lord's Advent and the Final Judgment. 
The awful consummation was solemnly announced in 909 
by the Council of Trosly ; and as the fateful date approached, 
Europe was strangely moved. The end of all things was at 
hand, and men abandoned their worldly pursuits and 
ambitions. Buildings were suffered to fall into decay or 
pulled down since they would be no longer needed. The 
wealthy assigned their possessions to the Church, and the 
deeds of gift which still survive are generally prefaced with 
the formula appropinqtiante mundi termino, ' the end of the 
world drawing nigh.' Every mischance — an eclipse, an 
earthquake, or a pestilence — was accounted a premonition 
of the impending catastrophe according to the prophetic 
scriptures, and the terrified people would seek refuge in caves 
and fastnesses. Many bound themselves in villainage to 
religious houses, and such as could went on pilgrimage to 
the Holy Land, the supposed scene of the Lord's visible 
appearing. 1 

Similar, though on a lesser scale, was the situation at 
Thessalonica. The Church was seething with excitement. 
Enthusiasm and fanaticism were rampant ; confusion pre- 
vailed ; discipline was defied, and controversy raged. The 
Presbyters were impotent, and they communicated their 
difficulties to the Apostle and besought his counsel. 

The First Letter to Thessalonica 

The He immediately responded to their appeal, and his reply 

Apostles j s i nves ted. with a peculiar interest as the earliest of his 

extant letters. He did not write it with his own hand, but 

dictated it to an amanuensis. This was the fashion at that 

period in consequence largely of the prevalence of illiteracy ; 

1 Cf. Mosheim, Eccl. Hist, III. ii., chap. III. 3 ; Milman, Latin Christianity, 
T. xiii. 



THE SECOND MISSION 155 

and it still obtains in the East, where the public scribe, seated 
at his table with inkstand and pen in readiness, is a familiar 
figure on every city-street. 1 Illiteracy, however, was not 
the only reason for the employment of an amanuensis. 
' Writing fair,' as Shakespeare observes, is a rare accomplish- 
ment, and it was peculiarly difficult for the Apostle. Not 
only was his sight defective, 2 but his hands were coarsened 
by the rough toil of tent-making, and penmanship would be 
no easy task for his cramped and indurated fingers. This is 
no mere surmise ; for in an interesting passage where he is 
writing with his own hand, he playfully alludes to his large, Gal. vi, n. 
sprawling characters. And here lay a further reason for 
Ins employment of an amanuensis, since papyrus, though 
the least expensive of writing materials, was at the cheapest 
very costly. 3 It was sparingly used, and this appears not Cf. Rom. 
only in the custom of including in a letter greetings from ™ijj~ ' 
mutual friends 4 but in the close and minute penmanship of 
extant manuscripts. A letter written by a scribe was 
authenticated by an autograph signature; 5 and the cf. aTh. 
Apostle's practice was to take the pen from his amanuensis ™'qJ x [ xvi! 
at the close and write the final benediction with his own hand ? x : Co1 - 
in his characteristic and unmistakable style. 

In the present instance the amanuensis would be either His 
Silas or Timothy. The former was well qualified for the ^ 
task, and he subsequently discharged it for the Apostle cf. 1 Pet, 
Peter ; but it seems probable that it was rather performed v * I3, 
by Timothy, since he was attached to the mission in the 
capacity of attendant, and the business of scribe belonged 
to his office. 6 In any case it was no menial function. The 
letter was the Apostle's, but he associates himself with both 

1 Cf. Hichens, The Near East, p. 209. a Cf. p. 70. 

3 The price varied with the quality. The sheets measured 9 to 1 1 inches by 5 
to 5 1 ; and a single sheet is quoted as selling now at a drachma and three obols 
or fully 1/-, again at three obols or about 456!., and again at two obols or about 
3d. Cf. Milligan, N. T. Documents, pp. 1 1 f. 

4 In a 2nd c. papyrus with thirty-one lines no fewer than thirteen are occupied 
with greetings. Cf. Milligan, ibid. p. 12. 

6 Cf. Chrys. In Epist. IT ad Thess. I : Kad&irep koX vvv eft tjja&v earlv. 6,-irb 
yap T?jS iiiroypacpis 5ij\a ylverai to. ypv.jx^ara t&v ire/xirovTUV. Plat. Epist. XIII 
begins HX&twv Aiopvalip rvpavucp 'Zvpa.Kovo-Qv eti TrpaTTCLv and proceeds o-pxv C01 
TTj$ iirKXToXr/s forw kclI afia <rvfjt,fio\ov Uti trap' 1 ifiov earl. For interesting examples 
3f. Oxyrh. Pap. 246, 275, 497. * Cf. p. 79. 



amanuen- 



156 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Grateful 
acknow- 
ledgment 
of the 
Church's 
faith. 



his companions at the very outset and maintains the associa- 
tion throughout : ' we thank God/ ' our Gospel/ ' what sort 
of men we proved among you/ ' what a reception we had 
when we appeared among you.' 1 They had shared his 
ministry at Thessalonica, and they shared also his present 
solicitude ; and with characteristic generosity he would 
honour them in the eyes of the Church. 

i. i. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the Church of the 
Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Grace to you and peace. 

The letter from Thessalonica had assured the Apostle 
of the Church's affectionate loyalty to himself and his 
colleagues despite the calumnies of his Jewish enemies. 
' We know/ it had said, ' what sort of men you proved 
among us for our sakes ' ; and he prefaces his reply with a 
warm reciprocation. He assures them that he and his 
colleagues on their part cherished a constant and grateful 
remembrance of all that the Thessalonians had been and 
done ; and he tells them how it had gratified him to find 
that the fame of their faith and devotion had travelled beyond 
their own country of Macedonia. It had preceded him to 
Athens and Corinth and was the talk of the Province of 
Achaia. 



* We thank God always for you all, making mention of you in 

3 our prayers with an unceasing remembrance of the work of 
your faith and the toil of your love and the endurance of your 
hope in our Lord Jesus Christ before our God and Father. 

4 We know, brothers beloved by God, that He has chosen you, 

5 because our Gospel went not home to you in word only but 
also in power and in the Holy Spirit and much satisfaction, 
just as you know what sort of men we proved among you for 

6 your sakes. And you followed our example and the Lord's by 
welcoming the Word amid much distress with the joy of the 

7 Holy Spirit, so that you proved a pattern to all who hold the 

8 Faith 2 in Macedonia and in Achaia. For from you the Word 

1 That this is not pluralis majestaticus is proved by the introduction of first 
per. sing, when the Apostle refers particularly to himself (cf. ii. 18, iii. 5). There 
is no clear instance of ' the editorial we ' in the Pauline writings. 

a roh TTHrreuovcri. wcaTevav is the cognate verb of wiarts, 'faith,' and it is a 
disadvantage in translation that the old English use of ' faith ' as a verb (cf . 
Shak. King Lear, n. i. 72 : ' make thy words faith'd ') is now obsolete. 



THE SECOND MISSION 



'57 



of God has pealed forth, 1 not only in Macedonia and Achaia ; 
no, in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so 
9 that we have no need to say anything ; for they are telling 
their own story of us — what a reception we had when we 
appeared among you, and how you turned to God from your 
io idols to serve a living and true God and await His Son from 
Heaven whom He raised from the dead — Jesus our Rescuer 
from the coming wrath. 

And now the Apostle turns to the. calumnies of his Jewish Refutation 
enemies. In reporting these the Presbyters had assured calumnies, 
him of their unshaken confidence. ' We know/ they had 
written, ' that your appearance among us has proved no 
empty thing.' And this generous testimony made the task 
of refutation easy for him. His teaching was condemned 
as erroneous and immoral, and he points in reply to its 
gracious influence upon his converts. And he was accused of 
cowardly and selfish trickery. He had been, in the stinging 
phrase of a later generation, ' a trafficker on Christ,' 2 and had 
sought to ingratiate himself with his dupes by soft and 
flattering speech. There was indeed a show of reason in the 
taunt ; for he had always behaved at Thessalonica with 
exceeding tenderness. But it was the tenderness of a loving 
heart. He had never played the Apostle or stood upon his 
dignity. He had treated his converts as a father treats his 
children, nay, as a nurse treats her charge with 

' a simple, merry, tender knack 
Of stringing pretty words that make no sense. 
And kissing full sense into empty words.' 3 

When his calumniators represented this as flattery, they were 
flying in the face of facts. He had come to Thessalonica 
with the wounds of his scourging at Philippi yet unhealed, 
but his spirit was unbroken, and he had boldly proclaimed 
the Gospel at the risk of provoking fresh outrage. And so 
far from ' trafficking on Christ ' he had toiled early and 
late at his craft of tent-making that he might earn his 
daily bread. 

1 t%yxV T °"> like a peal of thunder (cf. Ecclus. xl. 13) or a clear, ringing 
trumpet (Chrys.). 

8 Xpio-Tt/xiropos. Cf. Didache, xii. 
* E. B. Browning, Aurora Leigh, 1. 



i S 8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Jer. xi. ao. 



Congratu- 
lation of 
the Thes- 
salonians 
on their 
steadfast- 
ness. 



tt. i You know yourselves, brothers, that our appearance among 

2 you has proved no empty thing. No, though we had previously 
been subjected to suffering and outrage, as you know, at 
Philippi, we had the boldness in our God to tell you the Gospel 

3 of God in the midst of a great conflict. For our appeal is not 
inspired by error or uncleanness, nor is there trickery behind 

4 it; no, as we have been proved by God ere being entrusted with 
the Gospel, so we speak with the design of pleasing not , men 

5 but God, ' the Prover of our hearts.' For we never resorted 
to flattering speech, as you know, or a fair pretext for greedy 

6 ends, God is witness ; nor did we ever seek glory of men either 
from you or from others, though we might have stood upon our 

7 dignity as Christ's Apostles. No, we played the babe among 

8 you like a nurse fondling her children. 1 Thus yearning for 
you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the Gospel 
of God but our own lives also, because you were so endeared 

9 to us. For you remember, brothers, our toil and moil. Working 
night and day that we might be no burden upon any of you, 

io we preached to you the Gospel of God. You are our witnesses, 
and so is God, how holy and righteous and blameless was our 

ii relation with you who hold the Faith, even as you know how 
we dealt with each one of you like a father with his own 
children, exhorting you and cheering you and solemnly charg- 

12 ing you to comport yourselves worthily of the God who is 
calling you into His own Kingdom and Glory. 

The Presbyters had written that they ' thanked God ' for 
all that Paul and his colleagues had done for them ; and he 
responds by assuring them that they had inspired himself 
and his colleagues with a like gratitude : ' We too thank 
God unceasingly.' And the reason of their gratitude was 
the heroic steadfastness of the Thessalonians in face of a 
cruel persecution. It seems that some of them had actually 
sealed their testimony with their blood ; and thus the 
Thessalonian Church had won a place with the churches of 

1 Reading vfa-tot, 'babes' (cf. I Cor. iii. i; xiii. u) with K*BC*D*FG 
Vulg. What was called by the calumniators ' flattering speech ' was in truth the 
language of affection, like a nurse's blandishments. So Orig. {In Matt. Ev. xv. 7 : 
iytvero ptjtios /cat irapairXri<yios rp6(p(p daXjro^arj rb iavrrji iraidiov /cat XaXoticry 
\6yovs wj iraidlov 5ta rb vaiUov), Aug. {De Catech. Rud. 15 : ' Hinc ergo factus est 
parvulus in medio nostrum tanquam nutrix fovens filios suos. Num enim delectat, 
nisi amor invitet, decurtata et mutilata verba immurmurare ? '), Hieronym. Hence 
the verb <rvwtiTri&£eit>, coinfantiari, denoting our Lord's adaptation of Himself to 
human childishness by the Incarnation (Iren. IV. lxiii. i). The variant rjmoi, 
'gentle,' is a dull smoothing away of the bold metaphor, facilitated by the pre- 
ceding v. 



THE SECOND MISSION 159 

Judaea in ' the noble army of martyrs,' God's faithful 
witnesses in all ages from the ancient Prophets to the Lord 
and His Apostles. 

13 And therefore we too thank God unceasingly that on receiv- 
ing the Word of God from our lips you welcomed it as no 
word of men but as what it truly is — the Word of God which is 

14 set in active operation in you who hold the Faith. 1 For you 
followed the example, brothers, of the churches of God which 
are in Judaea in Christ Jesus, in that you also experienced at 
the hands of your fellow-countrymen the same sufferings which 

15 they experienced at the hands of the Jews — the men who slew 
the Lord and the Prophets and hunted us forth. God they 

16 never please, and all men they oppose, seeking to prevent us 

from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to ' fill Gen. xv. 
up the measure of their sins ' always. ' But the wrath of God l6 - 
has fallen upon them to the uttermost.' 2 

A mere assurance of his abiding interest in his converts Review of 

t h (* T* tf* O t* Tl t 

was insufficient, since they might naturally doubt it. In- COU rse of 
deed it may be that his enemies had charged him with events - 
cowardly desertion in fleeing from the storm and seeking a 
secure asylum in Achaia. And so to disabuse their minds 
he reviews the course of events since his departure from 
Thessalonica. His first destination had been Athens, and 
there he had eagerly awaited the arrival of his colleagues, 
hoping that they would tell him that the way was clear for 
his return. But, to his bitter disappointment, they had 
reported that the persecution was still raging, and that his 
reappearance at Thessalonica would not merely involve the 
sacrifice of his own life but aggravate the sufferings of his 
converts by provoking fiercer hostility. So keen was his 
solicitude that he could not leave them unsuccoured and 
allow his work to be undone ; and it was agreed that 
Timothy, who by reason of the subordinate part which he 
had played would be less obnoxious, should venture back, 

1 ivepyeirat, not middle, 'operates,' but passive, 'is set in operation.' So most 
probably in every instance (cf. Mayor on Ja. v. 16). God and spiritual powers, 
whether good or evil, are said hepyelv, 'to operate' (cf. I Cor. xii. 6, II ; Gal. 
ii. 8, iii. 5; Eph. i. 11, 20, ii. 2; Phil. ii. 13); their instruments are said 
ivepyetaOai, 'to be set in operation' (cf. 2 Cor. iv. 12 ; Eph. iii. 20; Col. i. 29). 
The Word is in itself ivepyr,s (Heb. iv. 12), potentially ' operative,' and it becomes 
actually ' operative ' where there is faith : it 'is set in operation in believers ' by 
the Holy Spirit. And faith, again, ' is set in operation through love ' (Gal. v. 6). 

2 A stock phrase of Jewish eschatology. Cf. Test. XII Patriarch, vi. 11. 



160 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

and nerve them to stand fast against the fury of their 
persecutors and the subtler risk of seduction from their 
allegiance by insidious misrepresentations. And now that 
Timothy had returned to Corinth the Apostle was gladdened 
by his report of their heroic steadfastness and by the letter 
which he had brought and which told him that they remem- 
bered how he had warned them during his ministry among 
them to expect persecution for the Gospel's sake. And he 
reassures them of his constant affection and solicitude and 
his eager and prayerful longing to return and renew his 
ministry among them. 

17 And as for us, brothers, in the desolation of our temporary 
separation from you — in presence, not in heart — we were 
the more intensely eager, with much longing, to see your 

18 face ; because we wished to go to you — I Paul indeed once 

19 and again — and Satan closed the way. For what is our 
hope or joy or crown of boasting — is it not even you ? — ■ 

20 before our Lord Jesus at His Advent ? x Yes, you are our 
iii. 1 glory and our j oy . And so, when we could endure 2 no longer, 

2 we made up our minds to be left alone at Athens, and sent 
Timothy, our brother and a minister of God in the Gospel 
of Christ, to establish you and exhort you in the interest 

3 of your faith, that no one might be cajoled amid these dis- 
tresses. You know yourselves that this is our appointed 

4 lot. For while we were with you, we foretold you that dis- 
tress was in store for us ; and so it came to pass, and you 

5 know it. It was for this reason that I on my part, when I 
could endure no longer, sent to ascertain your faith for fear 
lest the Tempter had tempted you and your toil should 
issue in emptiness. 

6 And now that Timothy has come to us from you and told 
us the good tidings of your faith and love and that you have 
always a kindly remembrance of us, longing to see us just 

7 as we are longing to see you, we have on this score been 
comforted, brothers, about you, above all our constraint 

8 and distress, through your faith, because ' now we live if 

1 The sentence is broken by the Apostle's emotion. He intended to say : 
' What is our hope or joy or crown before the Lord ? Is it not our converts ? ' 
But he breaks off in his haste to assure the Thessalonians that they are included. 
' Therefore he added 7) ou%i nal vjxfh ; For he did not say "you " simply but "you 
also" with the others' (Chrys.). 

' crreyeiv, properly 'cover.' Hence (1) 'keep out,' cf. Thuc. II. 94: vijes ofi 
trrtyovcrai, 'leaky ships' ; (2) 'keep in,' cf. Plat. Rep. 621 A : 0)3 rb v5wp dyyeiov 
GvStp creyeiv, 'a leaky vessel.' Here either 'contain our longing' or 'keep out 
anxiety.' 



THE SECOND MISSION 161 

9 you stand fast in the Lord.' 1 For what thanks can we 
render to God regarding you for all the joy which we experi- 

10 ence on your account before our God, while night and day 
we pray with exceeding earnestness that we may see your 
face and repair the defects of your faith ? 2 

ii Now may He, our God and Father and our Lord Jesus 

12 Christ, 3 direct our way to you. And may the Lord make 
you increase and overflow in love for one another and for 

13 all men like our love for you, that He may establish your 
hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at 

the Advent of our Lord Jesus ' with all His holy ones.' Zech. xiv - ■ 

It was a grief and an embarrassment to the Apostle An exhor- 
throughout his ministry, that when the Judaists alleged that holiness! 
his Gospel of salvation by Faith issued in antinomianism, 
they could adduce what seemed a damning evidence of their 
contention. His Gentile converts too often retained the 
low ideals of their old heathen ethic and disgraced their 
Christian profession by moral laxity. So it had happened 
at Thessalonica, and he now introduces a call to consecration. 

iv. 1 To proceed : brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord 
Jesus that, as you received from us directions how you should 
comport yourselves and please God — and so indeed you are 

2 comporting yourselves — that you do it more fully. You know 

3 what charges we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 4 For this 
is the will of God — your sanctincation. He would have you 

4 abstain from fornication ; He would have each of you know 
how to master his own vessel 5 in sanctincation and honour, 

1 Bornemann, chiefly on account of 'das ganz deutliche Metrum,' regards this 
as an adapted verse from a Christian or Jewish hymn, suggesting as the original 
i'Qfxev £av Tjp.eZsjaTr^op.ev iv KvpLip, 'we live if we stand fast in the Lord.' 

8 Karapri^eiv, 'join together.' (1) In a political connection, 'reconcile con- 
tending factions' (cf. I Cor. i. 10). An umpire was called izaTapTurT-qp (cf. Herod, 
v. 28). (2) As a medical term, ' replace a dislocated joint ' or ' set a broken 
bone.' Cf. Galen, Opera, XIX. p. 461 (Kiihn) : KaTapTiap.6s ian ficrayuiy^ dcrrov 
f) 6<ttwi> etc rod rrapa (pvaiv t6ttov et'j top Kara (pvacv. (3) ' Repair a torn fabric,' 
e.g., a net (cf. Mt. iv. 21). 

* Cf. the co-ordination of God and Christ in i. I. Observe how the Apostle's 
sense of their oneness is expressed by the sing. Karevdvvcu. Cf. 2 Th. ii. 16, 17. 

4 Particularly in delivering the decree of the Council of Jerusalem (cf. Ac. xvi. 4). 

6 (TKeOoy signifies the body (cf. 2 Cor. iv. 7) as the vessel containing (1) the soul 
(cf Lucr. in. 440 ; Cic. Tusc. Disput. 1. 52 : ' Corpus quidem quasi vas est aut 
aliquod animi receptaculum ' ; Phil. Quod Deterius Potiori insidiari soleat, p. 223 : 
rb t?)% \pvxys dyyeiov rb awfia), (2} the Holy Spirit (cf. ver. 8 ; I Cor. vi. 19 ; 
Barn. Epist. vii. 3, xi. 9 ; Herm. Mand. v. 2). So Tert. {De Resurr. Cam. 16), 



i6-2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

jer. x. 25 ; 5 no t i n the passion of lust like ' the Gentiles who know not God/ 
Ps. lxxix. 6 an( ^ never transgress or take advantage of a brother in the 
Ps. xciv. 1. matter, because ' the Lord is an avenger ' in all these cases, 

7 as we formerly told you and solemnly testified. For when God 
called us, He did not mean us to be unclean ; no, the con- 

8 dition was sanctifi cation. Therefore, when one disregards it, 
Kz. xxxvii. it is not man that he disregards but God who ' puts His Holy 
r4 ' Spirit in you/ 

The escha- And now the Apostle addresses himself to the eschatological 
Sffifuhy. question which was disturbing the Thessalonian Church, and 
deals with three vexing problems which it had raised and 
which the Presbyters had submitted to him in their letter. 
The first concerned the maintenance of ' brotherly friendship/ 
(1) idle ex- and it had been occasioned by the extravagance of a number 
the Lord's of enthusiasts. Anticipating the immediate end of the age, 
Return, ^hey had abandoned their worldly employments and were 
idly scanning the heavens to catch the first flash of the 
Lord's appearing. They had been reduced to penury and 
were dependent on charity for their daily bread, with the 
natural result that a spirit of resentment had been aroused 
in the minds of sober Christians who were burdened with 
their support. Thus the Church's peace was broken, and 
her enemies were moved to derision. ' If/ says St. 
Chrysostom, referring to a like scandal in his own day, ' this 
is an offence to those who are with us, it is a far worse offence 
to the outsiders. They find ten thousand accusations and 
handles when they see a man in good health and well able 
to provide for himself begging and needing help from his 
neighbours. This is why they call us " traffickers on 
Christ." ' 

9 Regarding brotherly friendship you have no need that one 

is. liv. 13. should write you. For you are yourselves ' taught of God ' 

10 to love one another ; indeed you are performing the duty 

Chrys., Theodrt, Ambrstr., and the Fathers generally. 'To win one's vessel' 
{to eavroO ctkcvos Kraadai) means to get the mastery over one's body and deliver it 
from the desecration of lust. Cf. Shak. Oth. IV. ii. 83: 'To preserve this 
vessel for my lord.' According to another interpretation cr/ceros signifies 'wife' 
(cf. 1 Pet. iii. 7). So Theod. Mops.; Aug. {Contra Julian. Pelag. IV. 56; 
Serm. cclxxviii. 9). Thus the Apostle would mean that as a safeguard against 
illicit indulgence each man should ' get his own wife ' (cf . I Cor. vii. 2). But 
what would be the force of el8{pa.i then ? 



THE SECOND MISSION 163 

toward all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we 

11 exhort you, brothers, to perform it more fully, and make it 
your ambition to live peacefully and busy yourselves with 
your own affairs and work with your hands as we charged you, 

12 that you may comport yourselves decorously before those out- 
side and be dependent on no one. 1 

The second problem concerned ' those who were falling ( 2 ) Anxiety 
asleep.' Death had been busy at its ceaseless work since deputed, 
the introduction of the Christian Faith into Thessalonica ; 
and as one and another passed away and the promise of 
the Lord's Return remained still unfulfilled, the mourners, 
uninstructed as yet in the blessed hope of the Resurrection, 
wondered how it would fare with their beloved at His 
appearing. Would they be absent on that great Day and 
miss its gladness and glory ? 

13 And we would not have you miss the truth, 2 brothers, regard- 
ing those who are falling asleep, lest you grieve like the rest 

14 who have no hope. If we hold the faith that Jesus died and 
rose, so too will God bring with Jesus those whom He has laid 

15 to sleep. 3 For this we tell you in a word of the Lord 4 that we, 
the living, the survivors until the Advent of the Lord, shall 
have no precedence of those who have been laid to sleep ; 

16 because the Lord in His own person, heralded by a cry of 
command, by an archangel's voice, and by the trumpet of 
God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will 

17 rise in the first instance ; 5 then we, the living, the survivors, 

1 Or, taking fitidevSs as neut., 'have need of nothing.' 

1 ayvoeiv, not simply ' to be ignorant ' but ' to be ignorant where one might and 
should have known.' It was used, e.g., in the Common Greek of making a wrong 
return in an assessment schedule (cf. Moulton and Milligan, Vocab.). Hence 
under the Levitical economy 'a sin of ignorance' (dyvorjfxa) was held culpable 
and required expiation. 

8 fobs KoifiTidevTas did rod 'Irjaov, ' those who have been laid to sleep by Jesus,' 
a true passive (cf. Moulton, Proleg., p. 162). Another construction connects 5ia 
rod 'Iri<rov with &£et, 'God will through Jesus bring with Him,' i.e., in His train, 
or perhaps prolept., ' to be with Him (in His glory).' So Theod. Mops. Chrys., 
while approving the former, mentions both interpretations. The latter obliterates 
the double parallelism — roOs kol/x. did rod 'I?)<tou with 'IrjaoOs dircdavev and #£a 
<rvv avrS with dvicrt). 

4 Referring either to our Lord's general teaching (cf. Jo. vi. 39, 40) or to an 
unrecorded logion. 

6 vp2rov NABD C EKL, 'in the first instance,' balanced by iireira. The re- 
surrection will be the first act in the drama. The variant np'Zroi D*FG, ' first.' 
means that the dead in Christ will be raised before the ungodly (cf. Rev. xx. 4, 5). 



1 64 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

will in their company be rapt away amid clouds to meet the 
Lord 1 in the air. And thus shall we be always with the Lord. 
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. 

(3) The The third inquiry concerned the time of the Lord's 

LorVs e Return ; and it was a bewildered appeal for some definite 

Return, pronouncement which might calm the prevailing unrest. 

The Apostle answers that he has none to offer, and recalls 

how the Lord in the hour of His departure had censured 

cf. Ac. i. that very inquiry as an illegitimate intrusion into the 

Father's secret council. The one certainty was that the 

Lord's Return would be a sudden surprise ; and here he 

takes occasion to reiterate his admonition against moral 

laxity. It was impossible to foretell when the Lord would 

appear ; but all would be well if only they remembered His 

word : ' In whatsoever employments I may surprise you, 

in these will I also judge you/ 2 and held themselves in 

constant readiness to meet Him without shame. 

Cf. Ae.i. 7. v. 1 Regarding 'the periods and the crises,' brothers, you have 

2 no need that anything be written to you. For you yourselves 

Cf. Mt. know perfectly well that the Day of the Lord comes like a 

xxiv. 43. 3 thief in the night. 3 When they are saying ' Peace and 

safety,' then all of a sudden ruin swoops upon them like her 

pangs upon a woman with child ; and they shall not escape. 

4 But you, brothers, are not in darkness that the Day should 

Cf. Je. xii. 5 surprise you like a thief ; for you are all sons of light and sons 

3 6 - 6 of day. We belong neither to night nor to darkness ; so then 

let us not slumber like the rest but be wakeful and sober. 

Cf. Jo. iii. 7 It is by night that slumberers slumber, and it is by night that 

n 9 "15.' A °' 8 drunkards get drunken. But as for us, since we belong to the 

But the apocalyptic idea of two resurrections {avdaraais KadoXiKT) icai fxepiK-q) is 
foreign to Paul's thought. He contemplates only one — that of 'the dead in 
Christ ' ; and when he says that they will rise ' in the first instance,' he means that 
they will be raised before the living are 'rapt away,' and both will go home 
together. Moreover, the apocalyptic ' first resurrection ' is not a general resurrec- 
tion of believers, but a resurrection of the martyrs who had fallen in the Domitian 
persecution. The cause for which they had died would triumph, and they would 
share its triumph. 

1 eh airdvTT)<nv, cf. p. 130, n. 3. 

■ iv oh hv vfias /caTa\d/3w, iv toiJtoij teal Kpivw. Cf. Unwritten Sayings of Our 
Lord, ir. 

* The Jews inferred from Ex. xii. 29 that the Messiah would come at midnight, 
and the early Christians inferred from Mt. xxv. 6 that the Lord would return &t 
midnight. Cf. Hieronym. on the latter passage. 



THE SECOND MISSION 165 

day, let us be sober, ' wearing a cuirass,' that of faith and love, is. lix. 17 
9 and ' a helmet/ the hope ' of salvation ' ; forasmuch as God 
did not ordain us to wrath but to win salvation through our 

10 Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us that, whether we wake or 

11 slumber, we may share His life. And therefore exhort each 
other and build one another up, as indeed you are doing. 

Not the least serious aspect of the Thessalonian situation Practical 
was the disorganisation of the Church. The prophets of the ^jons? 1 " 
approaching Advent were irresponsible enthusiasts, and they 
pursued their propaganda regardless and indeed contemptuous 
of the judgment of the Presbyters. Authority was flouted 
and discipline defied. Their wild excesses occasioned re- 
sentment, reprobation, and recrimination ; and, what was 
still worse, they excited ridicule. Their prophecies dis- 
credited even the legitimate operations of the Spirit. 
Reasonable men looked askance upon all enthusiasm, for- 
getting the Lord's precept : ' Show yourselves approved 
bankers ' 1 and the duty which it inculcates of distinguishing 
betwixt genuine coins and base counterfeits. 

12 And we beg you, brothers, to appreciate those who toil 
among you and rule over you in the Lord and admonish 

13 you, and to hold them in very high and loving esteem for their 

14 work's sake. 'Be at peace among yourselves.' And we Mk. ix. 5a 
exhort you, brothers, admonish the disorderly, cheer the 
faint-hearted, lend a helping hand to the weak, be long- 

15 suffering toward all. See that no one ever repays evil with 
evil, but always pursue the kindly course with one another 

16,17 and with all men. Always rejoice. 2 Pray unceasingly. 

18 In every situation be thankful ; for this is God's will in 

19, 20 Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit ; do not set 

21 prophecies at naught; but prove everything, retain the job i. i, 8, 

22 genuine, 3 ' eschew every evil ' sort. 4 "• 3- 

1 ylveaOe Tparre^lrai doKi/xoi. Cf. Unwritten Sayings of Our Lord, VI. 

* -rravTore xa^pere, the shortest verse in the Greek Testament. ' No literary 
production has ever so often repeated the word "joy" as the New Testament' 
(Renan, Les Apotres, v). : 

8 Like bankers {rpaTre^lrai.) who tested coins (vofiifffxara) to ascertain whether 
they were genuine (/caXd) or counterfeit {icipdyXa). To 'test' or 'prove' was 
SoKind^eiv ; the process was Soki/j.7) ; a coin which stood the test was ddKi/j.ov, one 
which did not stand it was ddoKLfxov. 

4 Or 'every sort of evil.' etdos, (i) 'appearance' (cf. Lk. ix. 29 ; 2 Cor. v. 7) ; 
(2) 'form,' 'shape' (cf. Lk. iii. 22) ; (3) 'sort,' 'kind' ; as a philosophical term, 
'species.' 



i66 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

23 Now may He, the God of peace, make you entirely and 
perfectly holy, and may your spirit and soul and body in 
entire completeness be kept beyond blame at the Advent of 

Num. xxiii. 24 our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Faithful is He who is calling you; 

x 9 : ? s - and ' He will also bring it to pass.' 

XXXVU. 5. vj x 

The And now after his wont the Apostle puts his sign-manual 

Apostle's ^ ^j le i e ^ er it is no mere signature but an unbaring of 
manual, j^s heart. He bespeaks the prayers of the Presbyters for 
himself and his colleagues. And he extends his affection 
to the whole Christian community, and bids them ' greet 
Cf. Gen. all the brothers with a holy kiss.' It was the Oriental 
v?v XI1 t'„ 4 t*. fashion with kinsfolk and brothers, when they met, to 

xiv. 14, 15, «/ 

Lk xv. 20. embrace and kiss each other on cheek or forehead ; and it 
xvl. 16; prevailed in the Christian Brotherhood. And it was the 
°2*Cor'. fashion, moreover, with a Jewish Rabbi, when a disciple 



20 



xm. 12; pleased him, to embrace him and kiss his forehead in token 
of commendation. 2 It is the latter usage that the Apostle 
intends here. The kiss which he bids the Presbyters bestow 
on his behalf was his recognition of the faith which his 
Thessalonian converts had displayed in those days of trial. 
The letter was addressed to the Presbyters, but it was a 
message for the Church, and he insists on its being read in 
public assembly. 

35,26 Brothers, pray for us. Greet all the brothers 

27 with a holy kiss. i adjure you by the lord that the 

28 letter be read to all the brothers. the grace of 
our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 

Timothy The transmission of letters was in those days no light 

the bearer ■* ° 

of the matter. There was indeed an imperial post instituted by 
Augustus on the model of the Persian angaria ; 3 but this 
was a state service, and private despatches were conveyed 

The idea of oXoreXrjs is complete perfection ; that of 6X6kX^pos (cf. Ja. i. 4) 
unmutilated entirety. bXoKXripia. (Ac. iii. 16) is entire soundness of body. The 
Apostle prays, in view of the dra|ia (cf. ver. 14) of the Thessalonians, that they 
may be oXonXeh ; in view of their aKadapaia (cf . iv. 7), that they may be oXoicXrjpoi, 
sanctified in their entire nature, not only their spiritual nature (irveO/xa) or their 
intellectual (i/^X 1 ?) but their physical (crJ/xa). The tripartite division of human 
nature was a Stoic conception. Cf. M. Aur. xii. 3 : rpla iffrlv e£ 2>v wvvioTijKai' 
ff co fidr toy, Trvevp.aTiov y vovs. 

* Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 361. 

* Cf. Suet. Atig. 49. 



letter. 



THE SECOND MISSION 167 

by private messengers. 1 It was common for a wealthy man 

to maintain a staff of couriers, 2 but the less affluent hired 

messengers as occasion arose, while the poor were dependent 

on the service of a friend or the favour of a casual traveller, 

and it was thus that the Apostle's letters were conveyed, cf. Rom. 

In the present instance it appears that Timothy acted as his xvl ' *' 2 

courier. 3 It was an important office. For Paul's couriers 

were no mere posts. Not only were they entrusted with the cf. Ep\ 

communication of personal tidings, but they were charged q' ?\™' 

with the amplification and enforcement of the written message, s. 

It was in the month of September that Paul had come Active 
to Corinth, and he had no intention of remaining there. Corinth!** 
His hope was that peace would be restored in Macedonia, 
and he would be free to return thither and resume his inter- 
rupted ministry. Corinth was merely a temporary asylum, 
and it seemed useless to inaugurate there an enterprise which 
he must presently abandon. He passed several weeks in 
anxious expectancy, busy at his tent-making and availing 
himself of such opportunities as presented themselves for 
testifying of Christ. At length in the month of October 
Timothy arrived from Thessalonica ; and his report, grievous 
as it was, terminated the Apostle's suspense. The persecution 
still continued, and there was nothing for it but that he 
should remain at Corinth. And so, after he had written 
and despatched his letter to Thessalonica, he addressed 
himself to an energetic ministry in the Achaian capital. 

The liberality of his Philippian friends had relieved him Rupture 
of the necessity of earning his daily bread, and he abandoned ™ n a_ the 
his tent-making and devoted his full time and strength to g°gu«. 
his evangelical activities. 4 The synagogue was his arena, 
and he no longer contented himself with tentatively ' intro- 
ducing the name of Jesus ' 6 but ' solemnly testified that 

1 Cursores or tabdlarii. Cf. Cic. Phil. II. 31 ; Mart. Epigr. III. IOO ; Plin. 
Epist. VII. 12 ; Tac. Agric. xliii. 

2 The luxurious ./Elius Verus, Hadrian's adopted son, called his cursores by the 
names of the winds and adorned them with Cupid's wings. 

8 His departure from Corinth is proved by the fact that Crijpus and Gaius were 
baptised by Paul. 

4 avvdxtTQ ry \6y(f XABDE Vulg., 'was in the grip of,' i.e., 'closely occu- 
pied with the Word.' aw. t$ JlpejfiaTi HLP, 'was in the grip of,' *.#., 'con- 
strained by the Spirit.' 6 Cf. p. 151, n. 6. 



168 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the Messiah was Jesus.' A keen and protracted controversy 
ensued, and after his wont he supported his contention by 
appealing to the Scriptures. 1 His reasoning was incon- 
trovertible, but his opponents were impervious to argument. 
Exasperated by their dialectical discomfiture, they resorted 
to threats and blasphemies. Persistence was futile, and he 
cf Neh. ' shook out his garments,' signifying after the symbolic 
' I3 ' fashion still practised in the East that he abandoned them 
and would hold no further intercourse with them. 2 They 
had rejected the Gospel, and he would thenceforward make 
his appeal to the Gentiles. 
His He quitted the synagogue, but he did not go alone, 

adherents. Stephanas, whom he had won to the Faith at Athens ere 
coming to Corinth, 3 would accompany him ; and he carried 
with him also several prominent members of the Jewish 
congregation. One was no less a personage than Crispus, 
one of the Rulers of the Synagogue ; 4 and the other Titius 
Justus. 5 The latter was not a Jew. His Latin name 
suggests that he was a Roman colonist, but he was a ' God- 
fearer,' 6 and thus like Crispus he had doubtless been present 
during those heated discussions in the synagogue and had 
been persuaded by the Apostle's arguments. Another bore 
the Latin name of Gaius, and he also was probably a Roman 
colonist and a ' God-fearer.' He was a man of substance, 
cf. Rom. and he proved in after days a right worthy member of the 
xvi. 23. Corinthian Church, winning praise for his generous hospitality, 
cf. 1 Cor. He and Crispus were the only Corinthians besides Stephanas 
! * I4 ' and his household whom Paul baptised with his own hands ; 

and the reason was that Timothy, on whom in his capacity 

1 Cod. Bez. (D) supported by Syr. Vers. : iroWov 8t \6yov ywofihov ical ypcupQp 
8tep/XT}vevo/j.evuv avTLTaacofJLivwv avrdov, k.t.X. 

8 i/cTivd^acdai rd i/xdrta, distinct from (i) Siaprj<x<reiv rd Ipi&Tia, 'rend one's 
garments' (cf. Mt. xxvi. 65; Ac. xiv. 14), a protest against blasphemy, and (2) 
eKTLvacrvav tov Kovioprbv rwv irobwv, 'shake off the dust of one's feet' (cf. Mt. x. 
14 ; Ac. xiii. 51), the custom of a Jew on leaving unclean Gentile soil and passing 
into the Holy Land (cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 218). P. E. F. Q. St., July 
1906, p. 191 : 'Taking the open part of the dress in the right hand and shaking it 
means, " I have nothing to do with it." ' 

a Cf. p. 148. 4 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 94. 

s B*Dsr2 Syr p Vulg TtT/ou >i fa TOP . ke Ti'tov 'lovffTov. AB 3 D*HLP 

i lo6ffTOV. 

6 Cf. 13. 



xvni. 10 ; 
iii. 2. 



THE SECOND MISSION 169 

of attendant the administration of the Sacrament properly 
devolved, had gone on his errand to Thessalonica at the 
time of their conversion. From Paul's explicit statement 
that these were the only Corinthians whom he baptised, it 
may be inferred that Titius Justus received the Sacrament 
from the hands of Silas. 

Few though the converts may have been, they were Jewish 
numerous enough to require a meeting-place now that the anim< 
doors of the synagogue were closed against them ; and 
Justus supplied their need. He was well-to-do, and he 
placed at their service an apartment of his commodious 
house. 1 It proved an unfortunate arrangement. The 
house adjoined the synagogue, and the assembling of the 
Christians in such close proximity would be construed as a 
deliberate defiance. Their numbers quickly increased by 
the accession of Gentile converts, and this further exasperated 
the Jews. They naturally regarded Paul with special ani- 
mosity, and so menacing became their attitude that his life cf. Ac. 
was endangered. He was in continual apprehension of a \ ^J 
murderous assault. It was an alarming situation, and it is 
no wonder that his heart failed him. 

In the midst of his disquietude Timothy returned with Evil tidings 
unhappy tidings. The trouble at Thessalonica had in- s F a °™ n Ja. es 
creased. Not only was the persecution still raging, but the cf. 2 Th. 
eschatological frenzy was wilder than ever. It had been L 4 * 7 ' 
fostered by several enthusiasts who recognised in the cf. iii. n. 
distress of the Christians the beginning of the storm and 
announced that ' the Day of the Lord was upon them.' 
The Church was panic-stricken, and the Apostle's letter 
had proved ineffectual. His counsels were nullified by the 
fervour of the enthusiasts, who not only claimed prophetic 
inspiration but recalled how he had preached the imminence 
of the Lord's Advent while he was among them and alleged 
his authority for their affirmations. Moreover, they pro- 
duced a letter which he was credited with having written, a. a. % 
Perhaps it was a forgery, but more probably it was a personal 

1 The variant Aicra/3As atrb rod 'Aict^Xa, ' having removed from the house of 
Aquila ' (D* 137), represents Paul as leaving his lodging in the house of Aquila and 
Priscilla (cf. ver. 3) and taking up his abode with Titius Justus — a violation of the 
Lord's injunction (Lk. x. 7). Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 218. 



i c vision. 



ii 



170 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

communication which he had written ere the controversy 
arose, and which now lent itself to an interpretation which 
he had never contemplated. 
\ r-eassur- It happened that, when the report of the situation at 
Thessalonica reached him, Paul was menaced by an out- 
break of Jewish hostility, and the accumulation of trouble 
overwhelmed him. It seemed as though his ministry at 
Corinth were doomed, and he must again seek safety in 
flight. In his despondency he turned to the Holy Scriptures, 
and he found there the message which he so much needed 
Apparently he had lighted on that passage in the ancient 
xii. 10, Prophet : ' Fear not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, 
for I am thy God : I will strengthen thee ; yea, I will uphold 
thee with the right hand of My righteousness. Behold, 
all they that are incensed against thee shall be ashamed and 
confounded ; they that strive with thee shall be as nothing, 
and shall perish.' The brave words rang in his ears, and 
when he went to rest, they shaped his dreams. In a vision 
the Glorified Lord spoke to his troubled heart. ' " Fear 
not," ' was His command, ' but speak and keep not silence; 
" for I am with thee " ; and no man will set upon you to do 
you evil ; because I have much folk in this city.' 
Themis- The vision rallied the Apostle, and he resumed the con- 
expectation ^ c ^ with fresh fortitude. His first step was the writing of 
of an imme- ano ther letter to the distracted Church at Thessalonica, and 

diate . ' 

Advent, it was a delicate and difficult task. His embarrassment was 
that he shared the universal belief in the imminence of the 
Second Advent. During his Macedonian ministry he had 
proclaimed that the Lord would certainly appear within 

cf. iv. 15- the lifetime of that generation, and he had reaffirmed it in 
his first letter. Indeed it was his proclamation of this 
doctrine that had occasioned all the trouble ; and the 
only effective remedy lay in a clear recognition of its absolute 
erroneousness and a return to the explicit teaching of the 
Lord. He had represented the progress of His Kingdom 
as no sudden catastrophe but a gradual and protracted 

Mk. iv. development, like the ripening of the harvest — ' first the 

xfii 1 . fl' blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear,' or the 
operation of leaven, slowly permeating the mass of dough. 

s, \™g. And He had spoken of the Bridegroom ' tarrying ' and the 



THE SECOND MISSION 171 

Master ' travelling into a far country ' and returning ' after 
a long time.' It was human impatience of the divine long- 
suffering that had introduced the idea of an immediate 
Advent ; and it would have been well not only for Thessa- 
lonica but for Christendom in succeeding generations had 
the Apostle recognised the mischievous error and boldly 
repudiated it. But herein he was the child of his time. It 
was only the stern logic of events that exposed the error, 
and meanwhile he clung to it. 

Hence the difficulty which he experienced in dealing with The 
the Thessalonian situation. Blind to the truth which would corrective. 
have calmed the wild frenzy and restored the Church to 
sanity, he had recourse, though not without a latent misgiving 
which betrays itself in frequent hesitation, eager emphasis, 
and confused expression, to an ingenious theory which in 
very deed amounts to a denial of his postulate of the im- 
minence of the final consummation. He insists that it is no 
innovation and no recantation. He had advanced it in his cf. ii. 5. 
personal teaching during his sojourn at Thessalonica. But 
his statement of it can hardly have been very precise, else 
it would not have been so entirely ignored. Probably it 
had been obscure in his own thought, and it was only 
now in the stress of controversial necessity that it was 
distinctly envisaged. 

His argument is summarised by St. Jerome in the epigram Jewish idea 
that ' Christ would not come unless Antichrist had pre- Messianic 
ceded ' ; 1 and it is based on a doctrine which figures largely confed- 

era.cy of 

in the later Jewish theology, and which finds its earliest ex- lawiess- 
pression in the second Psalm — that the world's hostility to 
God would wax ever worse until it attained its height in a 
confederacy of the heathen nations against Him ; and then 
the Messiah would appear, and ' break them with a rod of 
iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel,' and 
inaugurate His triumphant and glorious reign. 2 The idea 

1 Algas. Qucest. xi : ' Christum non esse venturum nisi prsecessisset Anti- 
christus.' Cf. Pelagius on 2 Th. ii. (in his commentary on the Pauline Epistles 
preserved among the works of St. Jerome) : ' Nisi Antichristus venerit, non 
veniet Christus.' 

8 On the history and development of the idea cf. Bousset, Der Antichrist 
(Engl, transl. The Antichrist Legend) ; Schiirer, Hist, of Jew. People, 11. ii. pp. 
164 ff. ; art. Antichrist in Etuycl. Bid/. 



ness. 



172 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

was shaped and elaborated by the national experience m 
succeeding generations, especially by the atrocities which 
were perpetrated by Antiochus Epiphanes and which roused 
the Maccabees to their heroic struggle. Antiochus is that 
enemy of God and His saints depicted in the Book of 
Dan. xi. 36. Daniel — the king who 'should do according to his will, 
and exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and 
speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and 
prosper till the indignation should be accomplished.' The 
oppressed Jews recognised in him an incarnation of the 
world's enmity against God, and thenceforward that furious 
blasphemer stood in their minds as the image of the Messiah's 
protagonist in the final conflict. On that tragic Day of 
Atonement in the year 63 B.C., when Cneius Pompeius 
after long besiegement captured Mount Sion, and not only 
massacred twelve thousand Jews, but hewed down the priests 
at the altar and intruded into the Holy of Holies, where no 
foot save the High Priest's had ever trod, 1 it seemed as 
Cf. 2 Th. though the dread consummation had arrived ; and the 
"" 8# insulting foe was styled ' the Sinner,' ' the Lawless One.' 2 

christian It was natural that the Jewish doctrine should be retained 
Antichrist * n Christian theology with the necessary modification that 
the consummation was no longer the Advent of the Messiah 
but the Return of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and it is in Paul's 
second letter to the Thessalonians that it makes its earliest 
appearance in Christian literature. Toward the close of the 
first century a new and significant title was coined for the 
enemy who should lead the forces of evil in the final con- 
flict. He was called ' Antichrist,' 3 which signifies a rival 
Christ, an impostor arrogating to himself the true Christ's 
powers and offices and claiming the homage which is His 
prerogative. 4 Paul does not employ the title, but the idea 

1 Cf. Jos. Ant. xiv. iv. 2-4 ; De Bell. Jud. I. vii. 3-5. 

* Cf. Psalm. Sol. ii. I : iv r<$ vireprjcpaveveadai tqv afxapTuXbv iv k/hJ; KariftaWe 
reixv oxvpa. xvii. 13 : 7]pri/j.ii}crev 6 Slvoimos iirl rrjv 7771' rjfxwv awb (volkovvtuv avrfy. 

3 St John is the first writer and the only N. T. writer who uses the appellation. 
Cf. 1 Jo. ii. 18, 22, iv. 3 ; 2 Jo. 7. 

* Cf. ai>Ttj3ao-i\eiJS, &v6uira.Tos {proconsul), 'antipope.' Chrys. : oi yap 
eldcjXdXarpeiav #£ei iKelvos dXX' avrldeSs tis Zctcu kcli ir&vras KaraXvcrei tovs 
6eoi>$ Kal KtXevcrei irpoarKvvetv avrbv avrl rod Qeov. Theod. Mops. : ' Temptat 
enim ille per omnia ilia quae Christi sunt imitari, utpote et Christum se esse 
dicens. ' 



THE SECOND MISSION 173 

is his ; for, according to his conception, the final apostasy 

will issue not from heathendom but from unbelieving Israel. 1 cr. a. 4. 

The Enemy, ' the Man of Lawlessness,' ' the Lawless One,' 

will be a false Messiah, an incarnation of Satan even as cf. ii. 9. 

Christ was an incarnation of God, 2 enthroning himself in the 

Sanctuary, claiming divine attributes, and in the power of 

Satan exhibiting delusive signs and wonders. 

Such is the conception which Paul here introduces ; and The 
it effectively served his immediate purpose. The Thessa- ance of the 
Ionian enthusiasts believed that the Day of the Lord was Lawless- 
imminent, and they were looking for His appearance, ness the 
oblivious of the tremendous prelude. The order of events the Second 
was, first, the revelation of Antichrist, and then, and not Advent - 
till then, the revelation of Christ. 3 Nor would that prehmin- 
ary be immediately fulfilled. Already indeed the forces of 
lawlessness were gathering and seething beneath the surface 
like volcanic throbbings which will presently burst forth 
in ruinous convulsion ; but meanwhile there was a restraining 
barrier, and until this was removed, the storm would not break. 

What this barrier was the Apostle does not explicitly The 
define. He speaks of it with studious reserve, designating ™^traLt.' 
it now ' the restraint ■ and again ' the restrainer,' and refer- 
ring his readers to the teaching which they had heard from 
his lips during his ministry among them. And the reason 
appears when it is understood that the restraining barrier 
against the forces of lawlessness was the strong and beneficent 
authority of the Roman Empire, which maintained universal 
order and administered impartial justice. 4 Already, par- Cf. Ac. 
ticularly at Thessalonica, he had experienced its protection, xvu * 5 ' 9 ' 
and it was his security amid the dangers which menaced him 
at Corinth even while he wrote. It is no wonder that he Cf. Rom. 
accounted it ' an ordinance of God,' and counselled his i U Tim. 3 ii. 
converts to reverence and obey it ; and so late as the close I " 3 " 
of the second century Tertullian recognised it as the prin- 

1 Cf. Iren. v. xxx. 2, where the Antichrist's descent is reckoned from the tribe 
of Dan in accordance with Jer. viii. 16. 

2 Cf. Ambrstr. : ' Imitabitur enim Deum, ut sicut Filius Dei divinitatem suam 
homo natus vel factus signis ac virtutibus demonstravit ; ita et Satanas in homine 
apparebit, ut virtutibus mendacii ostendat se Deum.' 

3 Cf. the apocalyptic programme in Didache, xvi. 

4 C£. p. io. 



174 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Antichrist 
a person. 



Cf. 2 Th. 
ii. 3, 6, 8, 
9- 

Historical 
identifica- 
tions : 



(i) Nero 
rciivivus. 



cipal reason why the Christians should pray for the peace 
of the Roman Empire that it delayed the impending horrors 
of the End of the World. 1 

The imperial authority, then, was the barrier, and until it 
was destroyed the storm would not break ; and when this 
is understood, the Apostle's cryptic language becomes 
luminous. By ' the restraint ' he means the Roman rule, 
and by ' the restrainer ' the Roman Emperor. Nor is it 
strange that he should have spoken thus vaguely. If the 
preaching of the Kingdom of Heaven was construed as 
treason, 2 the least whisper of the impending dissolution of 
the Empire would have exposed him and his followers to 
condign punishment. 3 

It hardly admits of question that the Antichrist was, in 
the Apostle's thought, no mere impersonation of the prin- 
ciple of evil 4 but an actual person. Not only does he style 
him ' the Man of Lawlessness,' ' the Son of Ruin,' ' the 
Lawless One,' but he represents his appearing as ' a revela- 
tion ' and ' an advent ' in precise analogy with the revela- 
tion and advent of the Lord. Here, however, his definition 
ceases. Who the Antichrist would be he neither indicates 
nor professes to know. His identification was reserved for 
later generations, and each recognised him as a present 
enemy of God and the Gospel. 

The earliest identification is found in the Book of Revela- 
tion some forty years later. Much had transpired during the 
interval — not only the destruction of Jerusalem, sacred and 
dear to Christian as well as Jewish hearts, but the persecutions 

1 Apol. 32. ■ Cf. pp. 131, 138. 

* Cf. Chrys. : el yap elirer 5rt fwcpbv forepop KaTaXvd-^creTat ^ "Pwfialwv dpxv* 
$8y) eWeu; av a&rbv ko.1 Kar&pvi-av <bs Xv/ieQva fcal rods iriffroits diravras <b$ iirl 
rotJTcp {wvras icai (frparevo^vovs. Hieronym. Algas. Quest, xi : ' Nee vult 
aperte dicere Romanum imperium destruendum, quod ipsi qui imperant seternum 
putant.' The Fathers generally understand ' the restraint ' as the Roman authority 
(rrjv 'Po)/u.a'LKT]v dpxw), but there were at least two other interpretations : 1. The 
miraculous grace of the Holy Spirit. Cf. Severianus (Cramer, Cat. vi. 388) : 
' rh icarexov,' <prjal, t?> rod ' A7 lov Ilve^aros X&P LV ' This Chrys. rejects because 
(1) Paul woula 'hen have spoken explicitly : there would have been no occasion 
for reticence ; and (2) the charisms of the Holy Spirit had then ceased, yet 
Antichrist had not appeared. 2. The decree of God, tov Qeov rbv 'opov (Theod. 
Mops.). It rules out both that in neither case could Paul have contemplated 
1 the restrainer ' being ' removed.' 

4 So Lightfoot. 



THE SECOND MISSION 175 

of Nero and Domitian. Rome, once the guardian of justice 
and the refuge of the oppressed, was now the murderess of 
the saints, and the name of Nero was execrated. Such was 
the horror which his cruelties had inspired in the minds of 
his outraged subjects that, when he died, they could scarce 
believe it ; and a wild legend arose and persisted long that 
he was still alive, lurking among the Parthians and biding his 
time to swoop upon Rome and wreak vengeance upon his 
enemies. 1 It evinces the strength of the belief that there are 
on record no fewer than three instances of impostors pre- 
senting themselves in his name. The year after his death, in 
the reign of Galba, a slave, who resembled the tyrant in his 
turn for harping and singing, gathered an armed following 
in the island of Cythnos and occasioned a widespread panic, 
which subsided only when, not without difficulty, he was 
slain and his head exhibited in Asia and Rome. 2 The 
second appeared in the East during the reign of Titus, escaping 
on the dispersion of his followers into Parthia ; 3 and the 
third in the reign of Domitian thirty years after Nero's 
death. 4 The legend that he was still alive persisted early in 
the second century, and it was hoped by the Christians in 
those days that he would return and usher in the end. 5 

It was thus natural that the Christians should recognise 
Nero as the Enemy of God and expect that he would reappear 
and inaugurate the final conflict ; and this is St. John's 
doctrine of the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation. ' The 
wild beast which you saw was, and is not, and will presently 
ascend from the abyss and go his way to ruin. And the *vii. a. 
inhabitants of the earth will be amazed, they whose name 
has not been written on the Book of Life from the founda- 
tion of the world, when they see the wild beast, that he was 
and is not and will come.' This is the Antichrist — Nero 
redivivus — a baleful counterpart of Him ' who is and who >. 8, 18. 
was and who is coming,' ' the Living ' who ' became dead 
and is living for evermore.' • 

1 Cf. Suet. Ner. 57. I Cf. Tac. Hist. 11. 8, 9. 

3 Zonar. XI. 18. 4 Suet. Ner. 57. 

6 Dion. Chrys. Orat. xxi. 

* Chrys. commits the anachronism of identifying the Pauline ' Man of Lawless- 
ness ' with Nero redivivus ; and Baur and Weizsacker, accepting the identification, 
find in it an argument against the Paulin* authorship of the epistle. 



176 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



(e) The 
Huns. 



(3) Islam. 



(4) The 

Universal 

Bishop. 



(5) The 
Pope. 



Rev. xvii. 
5- 



The legend gradually ceased as time ran its course and the 
advent of the Antichrist was still delayed ; and another 
reading of the prophecy came into vogue in the latter half 
of the fourth century. The Huns were pressing upon the 
Empire from the East, and in this new peril Ephrem Syrus 
perceived a premonition of the impending catastrophe. 1 
And again in the seventh century, when Christendom was 
menaced by Islam, this fresh terror was interpreted as the 
approach of the Antichrist. 2 

As strife and confusion inci eased within the borders of the 
Church, a new possibility was discerned ; and so early as the 
close of the sixth century, when John, the Patriarch of 
Constantinople, the rival of the Bishop of Rome, assumed 
the style of Universal Bishop, St. Gregory the Great in- 
dignantly denounced ' the haughty and pompous title.' 
He called upon all Christian hearts to reject ' the blasphemous 
name.' And he recognised in the presumption which 
usurped ' this uncanonical dignity/ a sign of the coming of 
Antichrist and compared it to the pride of Satan in aspiring 
to be higher than all the angels. 3 

The growing corruption of the Church stirred the hearts 
of her nobler sons, and it inflamed the indignant zeal of the 
Spirituals, those stern enthusiasts of the Franciscan Order. 4 
Toward the close of the twelfth century Joachim, Abbot of 
Floris in the Kingdom of Naples, identified the apocalyptic 
■ Babylon the Great, the Mother of the harlots and of the 
abominations of the earth,' not with pagan Rome but with 
the worldly and vice-laden Rome of his day ; and in the 
thirteenth century Peter John Oliva dared to affirm not 
only that the Scarlet Woman ' stood for the Roman nation 
and Empire as it was once in the state of paganism and as it 
was afterwards in the faith of Christ ' but that ' in the 
opinion of some Antichrist would be a false Pope.' It was 
but a step further to John Wycliffe's assertion that the Pope 
was not the Vicar of Christ but the Vicar of Antichrist. 5 



1 Homilies on the Antichrist. Cf. Pseudo-Hippolytus, irtpl rrjs trvpreXelas ron 
Kbc/xov, and Philip Solitarius, Dioptr. iii. 10 ff. (Migne, Pat. Gr. 127). 

* Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius {Orthodoxographa). 

* Epist. iv. 32, 33. 

4 Milman, Lat. Chr. xil. vi. * Dial, xxxi. 73. 



THE SECOND MISSION 177 

And Luther had no hesitation in declaring that ' the Pope 
is the Antichrist ' and identifying him with ' the Man of 
Lawlessness/ This became an article of the Reformed (6) The 
Creed, 1 and the Romanists naturally retaliated and declared 
that the Reformation was the Apostasy and Luther and his 
accomplices the precursors of Antichrist. 2 And indeed to 
peaceable men it might reasonably seem as though the 
Reformation were nothing else than the mustering of the 
forces of evil against the Church of God. The state of the 
world, as they viewed it, is thus depicted in a Colloquy of 
Erasmus written in 1525 amid the confusions which culmi- 
nated two years later in the sack of Rome : 3 ' A financial 
famine is pressing hard on every court ; the peasants are 
exciting perilous commotions, undeterred from their purpose 
by so many massacres ; the populace is studying anarchy ; 
the house of the Church is being shaken by perilous factions ; 
this way and that the seamless robe of Jesus is being torn 
asunder. The Lord's Vineyard is being wasted no longer 
by a single boar, and at the same time the authority of the 
priests is in peril and their tithes withal, the dignity of the 
theologians, the majesty of the monks ; confession is 
tottering, vows are wavering, the pontifical laws are slipping 
away, the Eucharist is called in question, Antichrist is 
expected ; the whole world is in travail with I know not 
what great evil.' 

Thus it appears that each successive age has recognised An un- 
a contemporary fulfilment of the prophecy of the Anti- invention, 
christ, and has taken those commotions which, appalling as 
they seem to faithless hearts, are ever the birth-pangs of a 
nobler order, for mutterings of the approaching storm, 

1 In their address to King James his translators express their contentment with 
his Argumentum pro Juramento Ftdelitatis, ' which hath given such a blow unto 
that man of sin, as will not be healed.' Cf. Westminster Confession, xxv. vi : 
' The Pope of Rome ... is that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdi- 
tion, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called 
God.' 

2 Cf. Erasm. Epist, XV. 17 (London, 1642), Ludovico Episc. Torracensi, June 
18, 1 52 1 : { Ex amicorum litteris didici monachum quendam apud Christianissi- 
mum Galliarum Regem in concione magis etiam insanisse : qui dixerit jam adven- 
turum antichristum, cum extiterint quatuor prsecursores, Minorita nescio quis in 
Italia, Lutherus in Germania, Jacobus Faber in Gallia, Erasmus in Brabantia.' 

* Colloq. Putrp. 
M 



178 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Mt. xxiv. 
*4- 



harbingers of the end of all things. Those pages of history 
enforce the warning which our Lord gave His disciples on 
Mt. xxiv. the eve of His departure : ' See to it that no one lead you 
Hik.' xiu! s. astray. You will presently hear of wars and rumours of 
wars : look you, be not alarmed. All this is but the begin- 
ning of travail-pangs. It must come to pass, but the end 
is not yet. And of that day and hour no one knows, neither 
the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father alone.' 
It is a grievous fault of the Apostolic Church that she was 
deaf to her Lord's admonition and clung to her impatient 
expectation of an immediate Advent, involving herself, as 
the years passed, in ever deeper embarrassment and be- 
wilderment ; and it must be confessed that the prime re- 
sponsibility rests with Paul. It was he who imported into 
Christian theology that Rabbinical notion which has per- 
sisted to this day and has so often served the unhallowed 
uses of controversial warfare. It is alien from the teaching 
of our Blessed Lord. He foretold indeed the rise of false 
Christs and false prophets amid the confusion of the Jewish 
state as the already inevitable catastrophe of her destruction 
by the Romans approached ; x but the eschatological 
programme of a final apostasy and a scenic triumph is a 
picturesque fiction of the later Jewish theology. And it is 
instructive that, though the Apostle John accepted it in the 
Book of Revelation and recognised the Antichrist as Nero 
redivivus, he presently abandoned the wild dream. In his 
First Epistle, the latest of his writings, where he deals with 
the Cerinthian heresy, he defines the Antichrist as a spirit 
or principle — the Doketic denial of the reality of the In- 
carnation ; and since that principle found various expressions, 
he recognised many Antichrists in his day. This rendering 
of the idea won a measure of acceptance, and it still had its 
advocates in St. Augustine's day ; 2 but unfortunately the 
cruder notion maintained its ground and prevailed. 

That imagination of Jewish eschatology was familiar to 
Paul's mind, and it furnished him with a cogent argument 
against the excesses of the Thessalonian enthusiasts. The 
Second Advent was indeed imminent. The glorious con- 

1 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. 423 f. 
I Cf. De Civ. Dei, xx. xix. 3. 



ii. 18, 22, 
iv. 3 ; cf. 
2 Jo 7. 



The 

Apostle's 
use of the 
idea. 



THE SECOND MISSION 179 

summation was at hand, but it would not immediately 
arrive. It would be heralded by two world-shaking pre- 
liminaries — the dissolution of the Roman Empire and the 
appearance of the Antichrist ; J and neither of these had yet 
come to pass. The argument was indeed an effective antidote 
to the Thessalonian unrest ; but it was a stark contradiction 
of the admonition which the Lord had left with His disciples 
and which the Apostle had quoted in his first letter, that Cf. v. 1. 
they should refrain from curious inquiry regarding ' the 
periods and the crises/ And it seems that he presently 
recognised the illegitimacy of the argument. At all events 
he never repeated it ; nor is there any record of the effect 
which it produced on the distracted Church at Thessalonica. 



The Second Letter to Thessalonica 
The letter begins with the customary address : The 

address. 

i. 1 Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the Church of the Thessa- 

2 lonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to 

you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Ere entering on his argument the Apostle pays a deserved Commen- 
tribute to the constant and increasing faith and love of the tncomlgt 
Thessalonians, and assures them of his pride in their heroic ment 
steadfastness amid the storm of persecution. And he bids 
them recognise what the ordeal meant. God's righteousness 
demanded the vindication of His cause ; and thus their 
sufferings were an evidence of His speedy intervention. The 
day of reckoning could not be long delayed. It appears 
that the tidings of the Church's unhappy plight had been 
conveyed to the Apostle not merely by Timothy's report 
but by a letter from the Presbyters ; and he expressly 
acknowledges it. In response to his request for their Cf. 1 Tb. 
prayers they had assured him that they ' were always v ' * 5 ' 
praying ' for him and his colleagues, and he reciprocates : 
' we also are always praying for you.' 

1 Cf . Hieronym. Algas. Qwzst. xi : ' Nisi, inquit, fuerit Romanum imperium 
ante desolatum et Antichristus prsecesserit, Christus non veniet : qui ideo ita 
venturus est ut Antichristum destruat.' 



180 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

s It is our duty to be thanking God always for you, brothers ; 
and indeed it is well deserved, because your faith is growing so 
largely and the love which you all without exception bear to 

4 one another is so increasing that we on our part boast of 
you among the Churches of God for your endurance and faith 
amid all your persecutions and the distresses which you are so 

5 stoutly supporting — a demonstration of the righteous judgment 
of God, that you may be accounted worthy of the Kingdom 

6 of God for which you are indeed suffering, since it is righteous in 
God's sight to repay distress to those who are distressing you, 

7 and relief to you who are distressed — to you and us too — 
when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty 

is. lxvi. i 5 . 8 angels ' in a flame of fire/ taking vengeance on ' those who 

Ps" lxxfx 5 ' know not God ' and those who hearken not to the Gospel of 

6. 9 our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty — the ruin of 

is. ii. io, eternal x banishment ' from the face of the Lord and from the 

19, 21. 10 glory of His strength/ when He comes to be ' glorified in His 

holy ones ' and ' admired ' in all who have held the Faith — 

11 for our testimony was confirmed on you 2 — on that Day. And 

with this end in view we also are always praying for you, 

that our God may count you worthy of your calling 3 and fulfil 

by His power your every desire for goodness and every work 

is. xxiv. 15, I2 of faith, that ' the name of our Lord ' Jesus ' may be glorified 

lxvi. 5. j n y QU , an( j y Qu ^ n jjim, according to the grace of our God and 

the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The And now the Apostle plunges into his argument. He begins 

logical pro- with a warning. The source of the trouble at Thessalonica 

gramme. was threefold : the confident predictions of the enthusiasts, 

their plausible argumentation, and their appeal to a letter 

1 It is illegitimate to build on this phrase a dogma of 'everlasting punishment.' 
The idea of alwi/ios is quality, not dtiration. In the Book of Enoch els rbv alwva 
denotes a period of seventy generations (x. 5, 12), and a period of 500 years is 
called far) aluvcos, 'an eternal life.' Eternity excludes the idea of time. 
'Eternity {aim'),' says Philo {Quod Deus sit Immutabilis, p. 277), 'is the life of 
God ; and in Eternity there. is neither past nor future.' 

8 The MS. reading iinaTevdri is difficult. The choice lies between connecting 
4'<f> ijfias with to jxaprvpLov, 'our testimony unto you,' though i-rri here would 
rather mean ' against ' (cf. Lk. ix. 5), and referring it, notwithstanding the order, 
to eiriGTevdr), 'our testimony was believed as far as you,' advos usque, in occidente 
(Beng.). Two minuses. (31, 139) have k-Kio-TuBt), 'was confirmed' (cf. 2 Tim. 
iii. 14), and this probably is the original reading. The phrase occurs in LXX 
(Ps. xciii. 5 ; 2 Chr. i. 9). Cf. W. H., Notes. 

3 Our calling is probation. God calls us not because we are worthy but that 
we may prove worthy. Cf. Aug. Lib. de Prcedest. Sand. 37 : ' Elegit ergo nos 
Deus in Christo ante mundi constitutionem, prsedestinans nos in adoptionem 
filiorum : non quia per nos sancti et immaculati futuri eramus, sed elegit prse- 
destinavitque ut essemus.' 



THE SECOND MISSION 181 

which professed to have emanated from him and his colleagues 
and which, they claimed, supported their eschatological 
contentions. It is hardly likely that this was a deliberate 
forgery ; and the probability is that it was a private com- 
munication which he had written ere the controversy 
emerged and which lent itself to misconstruction. These 
were the influences which had done the mischief, and he 
begs the Thessalonians to disregard them and turn a deaf ear 
to the cry : ' The Day of the Lord is upon us ! ' The time was 
not yet ripe for the Second Advent, and the evidence was 
twofold. First, according to the eschatological programme 
the final consummation would be preceded by the inaugura- 
tion of the Great Apostasy and the appearance of the Man 
of Lawlessness. The Apostle portrays this impious Adversary 
in the Jewish fashion after the pattern of his historic pro- 
totype Antiochus Epiphanes, who, like all the Seleucid kings, 
had assumed the title of God and, in his attempt to extirpate 
the Jewish religion, ' polluted the Sanctuary in Jerusalem ' cf. i Mac. 
by building over the Altar an altar to Zeus Olympius. 1 2 Mac 9 ' 
The Man of Lawlessness was a veritable Antichrist, a rival vl 2. 
of Christ, usurping His prerogatives. His appearance would 
precede the Second Advent, and he had not yet been revealed. 
The forces of evil were indeed already gathering, but they 
were still restrained by the strong barrier of the imperial 
order ; and until that barrier was broken down, the cata- 
strophe would be averted. The continued existence of the 
Roman Empire was thus an evidence that the time for the 
Lord's Return had not yet arrived. 

1 The Fathers, taking the Apostle's language as a literal prediction, found 
its interpretation difficult after the destruction of the Temple, when the Sanctuary 
no longer existed. Irenaeus (v. xxx. 4) says merely ' he will sit in the Temple at 
Jerusalem,' ignoring the difficulty ; but his successors proposed two explanations. 
1. Pelagius conceived of a restored Temple ('Templum Hierusalem reficere 
tentabit omnesque legis ceremonias restaurare '). 2. The Antiochene interpreters 
took 'the Sanctuary' as meaning 'the Churches' — els ro.s iravraxov imcX-rio-Las 
(Chrys.), in domibus arationum (Theod. Mops.). Hieronym. mentions both views 
and prefers the latter, substituting ' the Church ' for ' the Churches ' (cf . Algas. 
Qitcest. xi : 'in Templo Dei, vel Hierosolymis, ut quidam putant, vel in Ecclesia, 
ut verius arbitramur'). Aug. (cf. De Civ. Dei, XX. xix. 2) cannot decide ('ego 
prorsus quid dixerit me fateor ignorare') ; but he justly observes that the Apostle 
cannot have meant a heathen temple, and mentions approvingly another opinion— 
that it is not Antichrist himself that is intended but the whole body of his followers, 
and els rbv vabv means 'as the Sanctuary' ('tanquam ipse sit Templum Dei'). 



i8 2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Mt sc3riv,§, 



t Mac. ii. 

IS- 

Cf. Jo. xvii 

12. 

Dan. xi. 
36 ; cf. Ez. 
xxviii. 2. 



Ps. Sol. 
xvii. 13. 



Mt. xxiv. 
24- 



a. 1 But we beg you, brothers, as regards the Advent of our Lord 

2 Jesus Christ and our gathering home to Him, 1 that you be not 
hastily swept from your judgment or ' alarmed ' either by pro- 
phetic inspiration or by argument 2 or by a letter purporting 
to be from us 8 to the effect that the Day of the Lord is upon 

3 us. Let no man lead you astray in any manner, inasmuch as 
' the Apostasy ' must come in the first instance, and the Man 
of Lawlessness, 4 ' the Son of Ruin,' be revealed, the Adversary 

4 who so ' exalts himself above every ' so called ' god ' or object 
of worship as to take his seat in the Sanctuary of God, pro- 

5 claiming himself God. 6 Do you not remember that, while 
6 1 was still among you, I used to tell you all this ? And for 

the present you know what is the restraint, that he may be 

7 revealed at his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness 6 
is already being set in operation, pending only the removal of 

8 the temporary restrainer. And then will ' the Lawless One ' 
be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus ' will sweep away with the 
breath of His mouth ' and annihilate with the apparition of 

9 His Advent. 7 And his advent according to the operation of 
Satan is accompanied with every sort of power and ' signs and 

10 portents ' of falsehood and with every sort of error of un- 
righteousness for those who are doomed to ruin ; forasmuch as 
they did not welcome the love of the Truth 8 that they might 

11 be saved. And it is for this reason that God is sending them 

12 the operation of error, that they may put faith in the lie, in 



1 In the only other N. T. passage where i-rrKrwayuyq occurs (Heb. x. 25), it 
denotes the assembling of the Church. Our gathering in Church is prophetic of 
our final home-gathering. It is a kindly word. Cf. our Lord's use of the verb 
(Mt. xxiii. 37). 

* Chrys. : Sid iridavoXoyias (cf. Col. ii. 4). 

* One 9 th c. MS. (P) has w? irap' tjiiuv. Cf. Theod. Mops. : 'quasi ex nobis' ; 
Ambrstr. : 'tanquam a nobis missam.' Si' ■fjp.&v is perhaps an assimilation to the 
preceding clauses. 

4 6 (LvOpwiros T7js dfofiias KB. rijy ajuapriai (ADEFGKLP) is probably an 
interpretative gloss. Cf. 1 Jo. iii. 4. 

5 dirooeiKviivai was used of the proclamation of a king. Cf. Strabo, 540 : 
(5aai\ta 5' ij^iovv avrois dvo§€ix^d vai - 547 '■ K°& toijtwv dirtSeil-ev airbv j3a<ri\£a. 
Jos. Ant. vi. iii. 3 ; VI. xiv. 2. 

* An impious counterpart of rb rrjs eu<re/3e(as jxv(rrr]piov (1 Tim. iii. 16). 

' Cf. Hieronym. Algas. Qucest. xi : * et quomodo tenebrae solis fugantur 
adventu, sic illustratione adventus sui eum Dominus destruet atque delebit.' 
£iri<pavela denoted the breaking of day (cf. Polyb. ill. xciv. 3), the sudden 
appearance of an enemy (cf. I. liv. 2), the apparition of a deity (cf. Plut. Them. 
xxx. 3). Hence ' the appearing of Christ ' either at the Incarnation (cf. 2 Tim. 
L 10) or at the Second Advent (cf. 1 Tim. vi. 14). 

8 Not simply ' truth ' as opposed to ' falsehood ' but ' the truth of the Gospel ' 
(cf. Rom. ii. 8 ; 2 Cor. iv. 2, vi. 7, xiii. 8 ; Gal. ii. 5, 14; Eph. i. 13 ; Col. i. 5} 
or 'Him who is the Truth' (cf. Jo. xiv. 6). Chrys. : dya.im]v Si a\7)deias rbv 



THE SECOND MISSION 183 

order that all may be judged who have not put faith in the 
Truth but consented to unrighteousness. 

It was a dark prospect, and the Apostle expresses his Exborta- 
thankfulness that the Thessalonians would have no part in sleadfLt- 
the impending Apostasy. And he charges them meanwhile ness - 
to abide by his teaching, and prays for their comfort and 
confirmation. 

13 But it is our duty to be thanking God always for you, 
brothers ' beloved of the Lord,' that God chose you from the Dt. xxxiii. 
beginning 1 to be saved by sanctification of the Spirit and faith I2 - 

14 in the Truth. And to this He also called you through our 
Gospel, that you may win the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

15 So then, brothers, stand firm, and hold fast the traditions 
which you were taught whether by word or by letter of ours. 

16 And may He, our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father, who Cf. 1 Th. 
loved us and gave us eternal comfort and a good hope in grace, iiK "• 

17 comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work 
and word. 

The Apostle has now completed his argument, but ere Request 
closing the letter he introduces two practical concerns. One ThessL 
is his own situation at Corinth, where even as he wrote he lonians* 
was menaced by Jewish hostility ; and he bespeaks the cf. Ac 
prayers of the Thessalonians not merely for his personal xvm - IO - 
safety but for the success of his ministry. 

iii. 1 To conclude : pray, brothers, for us, that ' the Word of the Ps. cxivi. 
Lord may run its course ' and be glorified, as it is indeed I5> 

2 among you, and that we may be rescued from the outrageous 2 

3 and evil men ; for it is not every one that has faith. But 
faithful is the Lord, and He will establish you and guard you 

Xpiarbv KaKet They were doomed because they had not welcomed the love of 
Christ. It favours this interpretation that, except in Lk. xi. 42, y ayd-rrrj rov 
Qeov is always subjective ('God's love for us'), not objective ('our love for 
God'). 

1 air' apxvs, either 'from all eternity' (cf. I Jo. i. I, ii. 13, 14) or 'from the 
beginning of your Christian life' (cf. I Jo. ii. 7, 24, iii. 11). The phrase occurs 
nowhere else in the Pauline writings, and the variant a.irapxw BFGP Vulg. 
('chose you as the first-fruits') may be authentic. Cf. Rom. xvi. 5 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 
15. Strictly the Philippians were 'the first-fruits of Macedonia,' but as converts 
of the same mission the Thessalonians might fairly share the designation. 

8 &T07ros (cf. Lk. xxiii. 41) denotes lawless violence. Cf. Oxyrh. Pap. 904, 
where a police official complains of iToir^fxara inflicted upon him in the discharge 
of his duty — 'being suspended by ropes and belaboured with blows on the body,' 



1 84 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

4 from the Evil One. And we have, in the Lord, every con- 
fidence in you 1 that what we charge you both are doing and 

3 will do. And may the Lord direct your hearts into the love 
of God and into the endurance of Christ. 

Rebuke His other concern was the restoration of order in the 

idiers. US Thessalonian Church. The prime offenders were the 
enthusiasts who, anticipating the Lord's immediate Return, 
had abandoned their industries and were living on charity ; 
and he reminds them of his own example during his ministry 
at Thessalonica — how he had toiled late and early at his 
craft of tent-making that he might earn his daily bread. 

6 And we charge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who is comport- 
ing himself in a disorderly fashion and not according to the 

7 tradition which you received from us. You yourselves know 
how you must follow our example. We were never disorderly 

8 among you and never owed the bread we ate to any one's 
charity. No, toiling and moiling night and day, we worked 

Cf. i Cor. 9 hard that we might not be a burden upon any of you. Not 

ix. 4-10. because we have no authority, but that we might present 

io ourselves to you as a pattern for your imitation. For, when we 

were among you, we used to give you this charge : ' If one will 

ii not work, neither let him eat.' 2 We hear of some comporting 

themselves among you in a disorderly fashion, plying no busi- 

12 ness but playing the busybody. 3 And such persons we charge 
and exhort in the Lord Jesus that they peaceably do their work 

13 and eat their own bread. And as for you, brothers, do the 

14 honourable thing and never lose heart. And if any one does 
not hearken to what we are saying in our letter, 4 mark the man 

1 Cf. Gal. v. io. Since, however, ireiroiOivai is construed with either it> (cf. 
Phil. ii. 24, iii. 3, 4) or irri with accus. (cf. Mt. xxvii. 43 ; 2 Cor. ii. 3) or dat. 
(cf. Lk. xi. 22 ; 2 Cor. i. 9 ; Heb. ii. 13), ev KvpLcj? may here be the direct object : 
'we have confidence in the Lord regarding you.' 

8 A proverbial maxim. Wetstein quotes Rabbinical parallels. Cf. a monk's 
saying (Socr. Eccl. Hist, IV. 23) : 6 ii.ova.ybs ei (td\ epyafoiro, iiricrris T<p irXeoveKTet 
Kpiverai. 

3 On the word-play cf. I Cor. vii. 31; 2 Cor. vi. 10. irepi.ep~>/ale<rQai, 'play 
the Tepiepyos' (cf. I Tim. v. 13). Cf. Plat. Apol, 19 B: 2uxp&T7}s d5i/cei /ecu 
irepiepya^eTcu. fyrwv to. re virb 777s /ecu ovpdvia. M. Aur. X. 2 ; Ecclus. iii. 23. 

4 Since the Apostle apprehends that his written message may carry less weight 
than a personal address (cf. 2 Cor. x. 11), it is plain that neither he nor his readers 
regarded his letters as inspired oracles. By ' the letter ' (r^s <?irioro\?» he means 
the present letter (cf. I Th. v. 27) ; but Grot, Beng., and others connect 5ia -rip 
iwio-ToXris with <rr)/Aeiovff0e, 'signify him in your letter,' meaning that he expected 
an answer. 



THE SECOND MISSION 185 

and have no intercourse with him, that he may feel ashamed. 

15 And do not count him as an enemy but admonish him as a 

16 brother. And may He, the Lord of Peace, give you peace at 
every moment wherever you may be. The Lord be with you 
all. 



And now he takes the pen and signs the letter with his own The 
hand ; and in view of the mischievous use which had been ^°_ stle 
made of that letter professing to be his, he calls attention manual. 
to his characteristic autograph and intimates that no letter 
is his which does not bear it. 



17 The greeting with my own — Paul's — hand. This is 

18 the token in every letter i thus i write. the grace 
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. 

It would be the month of November when the letter was Peaceful 
written ; and after its despatch, doubtless by Timothy, coriS at 
Paul addressed himself with undivided energy to the work 
of evangelising Corinth. He was not unaided. Silas had 
been with him ever since his return from Macedonia ; x 
nor would Timothy's errand to Thessalonica occupy long. 
He would soon return and resume his office as attendant. 
For a while no difficulty was encountered. The Jews would 
indeed watch the progress of the Gospel with jealous eyes, 
but they refrained from overt opposition. It was not that 
their hostility was abated, but rather that they were held 
in check by ' the restraint ' of the Roman law and durst 
not venture on molestation. 

Thus peacefully passed the winter and the spring, but mid- Accession 
summer brought trouble. Achaia was a senatorial province, proconsul. 
and it was governed by a Proconsul who held office, as a rule, 
for a single year. The proconsular year began on July i, 2 
and in the inauguration of the new administration the Jews 
recognised their opportunity. 3 

The new Proconsul was L. Junius Annseus Gallio, the elder L- Junius 
brother of the celebrated L. Annaaus Seneca and uncle of the Gallic 
poet Lucan. His original name was M. Annaeus Novatus, 4 

1 Cf. p. 152. ■ Cf. Append. I. 

* Cf. the Sanhedrin's renewed activity against Paul on the accession of Festut 
to the procuratorship of Judsea (p. 484). 

* He is the Novatus of the dedication of Sen. De Ira. 



1 86 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

but he was adopted by the distinguished rhetorician L. Junius 
Gallio and assumed his name. The gracious qualities which 
won him this good fortune, he retained throughout his career ; 
and his famous brother, who dedicated to him his works on 
' Anger ' and ' The Happy Life/ has pleasantly portrayed 
his character x — his gentleness, his frugality, his courtesy, 
his tact, his truthfulness, and withal his modesty and 
amiability. ' Other vices he knew not, but flattery he 
hated ' : ' to love him to the utmost was to love him all too 
little ' ; ' no mortal was so sweet to one as he was to all.* 

Arraign- Mistaking gentleness for weakness, the Jews conceived that 

Paui.° they might bend Gallio to their purposes. Soon after his 
accession they let loose the animosity which they had so 
long been harbouring, and, swooping upon the Apostle, 
probably while he was preaching in the market-place, they 
brought him into the Proconsul's court. They displayed 
none of the astuteness which had characterised the pro- 
cedure of their Thessalonian co-religionists. The latter had 

Ac. xvii. 7. cunningly twisted the proclamation of the Kingdom of 
Heaven into a seditious propaganda, thus at once enlisting 
the sympathy of the Greek populace and compelling the 
attention of the Roman magistrates ; but it was a purely 
Jewish grievance that the Corinthian Jews preferred. ' This 
man/ ran their indictment, ' is persuading people to worship 
God contrary to the Law.' 

The ease^ They quickly discovered that they had misconceived the 
character of the Proconsul. The fury of the howling fanatics 2 
was odious to the cultured and tolerant Roman gentleman. 
Had their complaint been valid, he would indeed have enter- 
tained it and adjudicated it on its merits ; but it had no 
locus standi in his court. It was a Jewish case, and since 
the Jews enjoyed autonomy in the regulation of their religious 
affairs, 3 it fell under the jurisdiction of the local synagogue. 
Paul was essaying to speak in his defence, but Gallio inter- 
rupted him and contemptuously stopped the proceedings. 
' If/ he said, ' it had been some injustice or wicked knavery, 

1 Nat. Quasi. IV, Prcefat. 

1 In Ac. xviii. 13 Cod. Bcz. (D) has Kara^oQvT€t Kal \4yovres, 'shouting and 
saying.' 
• Cf. p. 45. 



dismissed. 



THE SECOND MISSION 187 

you Jews, it would have been reasonable that I should have 
patience with you ; but if it be questions about a word and 
names and your own law, you will see to it yourselves. I 
refuse to be a judge of these things/ Therewith he dis- 
missed the case and ordered his lictors to remove the com- 
plainants from the bar. 

The court was thronged with spectators, the rabble of the Popular 
city, who had seen Paul arrested and had followed to learn s trat?on of 
what was ado ; and the issue delighted them by reason alike se^^f 1 
of the popularity which his ministry had wen him and of 
the prevailing antipathy to the Jews. As the discomfited 
prosecutors were retiring from the court, they pressed about 
them and hustled them, and, not content with a hostile de- 
monstration, they proceeded to actual violence. They laid 
hold on Sosthenes, who held the office of Ruler of the 
Synagogue, being probably the successor of Crispus, and in 
virtue of his office had taken a leading part in the prosecution, 
and fell to belabouring him. 1 It was the sort of horse-play 
which a mob loves, and, though it was done in full view of 
his tribunal, Gallio ignored it. He was disgusted with the 
Jews, and he regarded their rough handling as rude justice. 2 

This attempt to arrest the progress of the Gospel in Corinth Peaceful 
served rather to further it. The Jews had invoked the tion of 
Roman law, and it had declared against them ; and thence- ministry?" 
forth not only was Paul secure from their molestation, but 
the popular sympathy was engaged on his behalf. It was 
early in August, a.d. 52, that he was arraigned before the 

1 In Ac. xviii. 17 the chief authorities (KAB Vulg.) have simply -rrivres, 
'they all,' and the question is who are meant. 1. On the supposition that 
Sosthenes the Ruler of the Synagogue is identical with ' Sosthenes the brother * 
(1 Cor. i. 1) and that, like Crispus, he was already a Christian (so Lightfoot), the 
Jews are meant ; and a few insignificant MSS. read Traces ol 'Iou5cuoi. The idea 
is that in their discomfiture they vented their spleen on their apostate ruler. But 
they would hardly have ventured so far after their repulse. 2. DEHLP read 
ir&vTes oI"E\\t]V€s, 'all the Greeks,' and, though only a gloss, this rightly defines 
the situation. If this Sosthenes be the Sosthenes of the epistle, he was converted 
subsequently ; and indeed the identification is precarious, since the name was quite 
common. 

J It is an entire misunderstanding of the narrative that has made the name of 
Gallio a byword for religious indifference — ' a lukewarm Laodicean or an indifferent 
Gallio' (Scott, Old Mort. chap. xxi). His conduct is a conspicuous example ©f 
the Roman justice which so often befriended the Apostle, 



i"88 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Proconsul, and he prosecuted his ministry undisturbed until 
the close of February, a.d. 53. x 



VII 

Acxviii, THE HOMEWARD JOURNEY 

l8£-22. 

Departure It was time that the Apostle should take his departure 
Codnth from Corinth and turn his face homeward. His mission had 
lasted three years, and now that he had evangelised Macedonia 
and Achaia, he must carry the Gospel elsewhere and win yet 
other lands for Christ. And his resolution was precipitated 
by an untoward necessity. It appears that Corinth was 
somewhat insalubrious for strangers. Seneca mentions in 
one of his letters that his brother Gallio during his residence 
there was stricken with fever and, ascribing his ailment to 
local conditions, immediately quitted the city and made a 
sea- voyage. 2 The malady which afflicted the Proconsul, 
would find a ready victim in the Apostle, liable as he was to 
recurring attacks of ague 3 and exhausted by toil, peril, and 
anxiety ; and like Gallio he left the city and betook himself 
to the port of Cenchreae with the intention of embarking 
immediately on the homeward voyage. 
The It is remarkable how, as the narrative proceeds, the 

Apostle's Apostle bulks ever more largely in the historian's eyes ; and 

company. c ° J . . 

from this stage onward the interest centres exclusively in 
him. He is the sole persona dramatis, and his companions 
figure unobtrusively in the background. No mention is made 
of his colleagues, Silas and Timothy, at his departure from 
Corinth ; but it must be assumed that they accompanied 
cf. Ac. him. The latter certainly did, since he attended him on 
his next mission ; and so, it may be concluded, did Silas, 
though his participation in the second letter to Thessalonica 
is the last express record of his association with Paul, and 

1 Cf. Append. I. 

* Sen. Epist. civ : ' Illud mihi in ore domini mei Gallionis, qui cum in Achaia 
f ebrem habere ccepisset, protinus navem ascendit, clamitans non corporis esse sed 
loci morbum.' 

8 Cf. Append. III. 



XIX. 22. 



THE SECOND MISSION 189 

on the next and only occasion when he appears in the sacred 
narrative he is associated with the Apostle Peter, if he be cf. 1 Pet. 
indeed the Silvanus who served as the latter's amanuensis v 
in the writing of his first letter. Nor were these his sole 
companions. His friends Aquila and Priscilla, whose house 
had been his abode during the eighteen months of his sojourn 
at Corinth, were minded to try their fortune elsewhere. 
Ephesus, the capital of the Province of Asia, had attracted 
them, and they would accompany the Apostle so far on his 
journey. 

Syrian Antioch was his destination, and his purpose was niness at 
to sail from Cenchreae to Ephesus and thence to Seleuceia ; Cenchre£e « 
but it was unpleasantly overruled. It seems that his 
indisposition increased, and ere he could embark he was 
prostrated by his malady. It happened fortunately that 
there resided at Cenchreae a deaconess named Phcebe, who 
had doubtless been won by his preaching in the adjacent 
capital and who played a conspicuous and honourable part 
in the Church which presently grew up at the seaport. The 
care of the sick was a special office of the order of Deaconesses 
in the Apostolic Church ; and it would appear that Phcebe 
had compassion on the invalid and tended him in his sickness. 
At all events, in a letter which he wrote four years later, he cf. Rom. 
mentions her with affectionate commendation, and gratefully XV1, *' 2 ' 
recalls how he, like many another, had experienced her 
kindly ministration ; and it is reasonable to recognise here a 
reminiscence of the present crisis. 1 

It was a timely succour ; for he was eager to press forward NazMte 
on his journey and address himself to fresh enterprise ; and 
his anxiety is revealed by his behaviour. He was a Jew, 
and though he recognised that the Mosaic Law had fulfilled 
its end and was superseded by a nobler order, he clung to 

1 The evidence of Paul's sickness at Cenchreae is threefold : I. His vow (cf. Ac. 
xviii. 18). 2. The imperf. i^eirXet (Ac. xviii. 18), implying that his embarkation 
was delayed. 3. The term irpoardTLs (Rom. xvi. 2), which had two significant 
uses : (1) The patron of a resident alien at Athens was styled his irpoa-TaTrjs. 
(2) 'A succourer from disease.'' Cf. Soph. 0. T. 303 f. ; Eur. Andr. 220 f. 
Thus Phcebe earned the title of Trpoar&Tis (1) by befriending a helpless stranger, 
and (2) by performing the womanly office of ' succouring his sickness ' {irpo'taracQai 
T77S vbvov). In Plin. Epist. x. 97 nursing is specified as an office of the Christian 
deaconesses [ministry). Cf. Bingham, Antiq. 11. xxii. to. 



vow. 



i 9 o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the ancient pieties. It was customary for a Jew in sickness 
or any other distress not only to pray for deliverance but 
cf. Num. to assume the old Nazirite vow with such modifications as 
vi. i-ai. j.j ie ^tered conditions of the national life necessitated. The 
primitive observances were abstinence from wine and letting 
the hair grow during ' the days of separation/ and then on 
their accomplishment the presentation of a peace offering 
in the Temple at Jerusalem and the cropping of the hair 
and the burning of it in the fire on the altar. In later times, 
however, when so many of the Jews dwelt in other lands 
remote from the Temple, it would have been unseemly to 
travel unkempt to the Holy City, and it sufficed that the 
votary should shear his head ere setting forth and convey 
the hair to the Temple. 1 In the eagerness of his desire that 
God would restore him and suffer him to continue his labours, 
Paul assumed the Nazirite vow ; and when his prayer was 
granted, he shaved his head and set forth on his voyage 
across the iEgean. 2 
stay at His destination was still Syrian Antioch, but it was 

necessary for the fulfilment of his vow that he should visit 
Jerusalem by the way ; and so he took his passage by a ship 
bound for Caesarea. She did not sail thither direct, but 
steered her course across the ^Egean and put in at Ephesus ; 
and there Aquila and Priscilla disembarked and established 
themselves in their new abode. The business of her lading 
detained the vessel some time in harbour ; and the delay 
was in no wise unwelcome to Paul, since it afforded him an 
opportunity of acquainting himself with the Asian capital 
which he had intended visiting in the course of his second 
mission 3 and which, though his purpose had been overruled, 

1 Cf. Jos. De BelLJud. II. xv. I. 

8 In Ac. xviii. 1 8 it is grammatically indeterminate whether iceip&fievos relates to 
Paul or Aquila. It is generally referred to Paul ; but some (as Chrys. , Grot. , 
Mey., Blass) connect it with Aquila, thus absolving the Apostle of a quite 
gratuitous suspicion of Judaism. The suggestion that the order of the names 
YLplffKiWa ko\ 'A/ctf\as is designed to connect Ketpdfxepos with the latter is unten- 
able, since this is, with a single exception (i Cor. xvi. 19), the constant order (cf. 
Ac. xviii. 26; Rom. xvi. 3; 2 Tim. iv. 19), marking doubtless the wife's superior 
distinction in the Church. It is decisive that Aquila stayed at Ephesus, whereas, 
had the vow been his, he must have proceeded to Jerusalem for its fulfilment. 
The construction of the sentence is plain when /cat criiv aury II. koX 'A. is taken as 
parenthetical. * Cf. p. 119. 



Ephesus. 



XVI. 



THE SECOND MISSION 191 

he still designed to win for Christ. It happened opportunely 
that the day of his arrival was the Sabbath, 1 and he betook 
himself to the Jewish synagogue and discoursed to the 
worshippers. His reception was a happy augury of future 
success. It seems that he gained at least one convert in R 0m 
Epaenatus, whom he subsequently designated ' the first- s> 
fruits of Asia for Christ ' ; and so keen was their interest in 
his discourse that his hearers begged him to continue a while 
in their midst. It was impossible for him to comply, since 
he must proceed to Jerusalem for the discharge of his vow, 
and he would fain arrive in time for the approaching Feast 
of Pentecost. He must therefore take his departure and 
prosecute his journey ; but he promised that, if it were 
God's will — a proviso which experience had taught him to cf. Rom. i. 
emphasise — he would soon return. iv'19. ° r 

Ephesus was the western terminus of the great Trade Timothys 
Route which led through the valley of the Maeander and the Saiatia. 
Lycus into Southern Galatia, the scene of the Apostle's 
previous labours ; and his thoughts would go out to his 
churches there. Indeed there was reason for anxiety ; for 
since his visitation of them in the early summer of the 
year 50 they had been grievously disturbed, and it may be 
that disquieting rumours had reached his ears. He would 
fain ascertain the truth ; and it seems that he commissioned 
Timothy to travel thither from Ephesus, and revisit his 
home at Lystra, and rejoin him at Syrian Antioch with a 
report of the Galatian situation. 2 

Setting sail from Ephesus, the ship arrived at Caesarea, visit to 
and there Paul disembarked and repaired to Jerusalem. 3 kndarHv^i 

at Antioch, 

1 In Ac. xviii. 19 Syr. Vers, and several other authorities insert tu £tti6pti 
aapp&ry, 'on the following Sabbath,' after "E<pe<rov. 

2 This is conjectural (cf. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 182 ff.), but it is 
by no means gratuitous. It is a reasonable explanation of the intimate knowledge 
which the Apostle's letter to the Galatian Churches evinces of the Galatian 
situation. 

3 Cf. Ac. xviii. 22: dvafids, 'having gone up (to Jerusalem).' dvafialveiv was 
the technical term for ' going up to the sacred capital ' (cf. Lk. ii. 42 ; Jo. xii. 
20). Conversely KarafiaLveiv, 'go down from the capital to the provinces' (cf. 
Kar^rj etj 'Avridxeia-v). In view of the fact that in ver. 21 the chief authorities 
read dXXd dTorai-dfievos nai dwoiv ird\iv dvaicdfiif/b), k.t.X., omitting dd fie Trdurias 
rrjy koprrjv rr\v ipxo/x£vr]v TroiTjffai els 'Iepo<r6\vfia, some interpreters entirely 
eliminate the visit to Jerusalem and understand by ivafids ' having gone up from 



192 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

It was his fourth visit to the Holy City since his conversion, 
and it would extend over the sacred week. The time was 
spent in fellowship with the Church and the discharge of his 
devout offices in the Temple ; and then he took his departure, 
and travelled northward to Syrian Antioch, thus bringing 
his second mission to a close. 

the harbour (of Caesarea) to the town,' and by Kari^rj els ' AvtiSxchzv * went down 
by ship from Caesarea to Seleuceia, and thence on foot to Antioch ' (Blass) — an 
amazing construction. Even if the clause in ver. 21 be abandoned, avafias and 
ko.t£&t), in view of their accustomed use, clearly indicate the visit to Jerusalem. 
Probably the clause was omitted in consequence of a misunderstanding of thes* 
terms ; but in any case it accurately defines the situation. 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA a,,*™. 

22<J, 23a ; 
Gal. 
1 Paul, who walked in the Master's steps, diversified his dis- 
course to suit his scholars' need, now burning and cutting, anon 

applying gentle salves.' _ « 

rr J & & St. Chrysostom. 

Syrian Antioch was the capital of Gentile Christendom, and Evil tidings 
the Apostle's first duty on his arrival would be to lay before QaStia. 
the Church which had sent him forth on his mission, a report 
of his achievements during those three eventful years. It 
was a stirring narrative, and it would inspire his hearers 
with gratitude to Almighty God and a resolution to prosecute 
still further the heroic enterprise of winning the world for 
Christ. Presently, however, his gladness was overclouded 
by evil tidings. Timothy had left him at Ephesus and 
travelled inland to Southern Galatia to ascertain how the 
churches there were faring ; and now he arrives at Antioch 
with a distressful story. 

The decision of the Council at Jerusalem in the beginning Apparent 
of the year 50 had seemed to the Apostle a final settlement ©fai?" 51 * 
of the Judaist controversy : and it was with a sense of relief Juristic 

° J contro- 

that he set forth on his second mission m the spring. Heversy. 
had betaken himself to Galatia, and had communicated the cf. Ac. xvi. 
Council's resolution to each of his churches. It was a happy 4# 
issue of a dissension which had threatened the disruption of 
Christendom. Henceforth Jew and Gentile would be ' one 
in Christ Jesus/ tolerant of mutual differences in the larger Gal. UL28. 
unity of a common faith. As the champion of Gentile 
liberty Paul was solicitous to define his attitude toward 
Jewish tradition. Ceremonial rites belonged to the category 
of ' things indifferent.' The one essential was faith in 
Christ, and they were not necessary to salvation ; neverthe- 
less they were endeared to the Jewish heart by long use, 
and there was no harm and there might be profit in their 
continued observance, so long as the solitary efficacy of faith 
N w» 



194 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

was recognised. It was therefore, in his judgment, legitimate 
for Jewish Christians, if they would, to maintain those sacred 
and venerable institutions ; and at Lystra he had furnished 
an impressive demonstration of his attitude. He adopted 
Timothy as his attendant, and since the lad was half Jewish, 
he circumcised him in token of his consideration for Jewish 
sensibilities, 
itsrecru- It seemed a happy settlement, and he left his Galatian 
Gaiatia. converts and passed over to Europe with a thankful heart. 
His confidence, however, was quickly put to shame. The 
question had indeed been decided by the Council at Jerusalem, 
but the extremists, though overborne at the moment, re- 
mained obdurate and resolved to prosecute their contention. 
They were doubtless the same men who had invaded Syrian 
Antioch and excited dissension there ; and they conceived 
the base design of dogging the Apostle's steps and dis- 
seminating their doctrines in his churches. Under their 
cf. Gai. v. energetic leader, 1 they had followed him to Gaiatia and 

engaged in a vigorous propaganda. 
a mis- They were indeed a little company, yet, like the ' little 

prop V a- US leaven leavening the whole mass/ they wrought much mis- 
ganda. chief ; and the secret of their success was twofold. On the 

Cf. v. 9. ' 

one hand, they were uncompromising extremists, and zeal 
is always impressive. They had thrown off all disguise. 
Hitherto, at the conference at Jerusalem in the year 46, 
in the disputation at Antioch, and again at the Council, they 
had professed themselves Christians, and had required merely 
the imposition of the rite of circumcision upon the Gentile 

cf. ii. 4. converts. They had, however, been ' false brothers ' all the 
while ; and now that they had defied the Council's decision, 
they were done with compromise and displayed their true 

cf. iv. 10. colours. They had reverted outright to Judaism ; and in- 
sisted not merely on circumcision but on the full round 
of ceremonial observance. And, on the other hand, the 
Galatians were easily captivated. They were a singularly 
impressionable people, and they had shown it by their 
behaviour when Paul and Barnabas first appeared in their 

Cf. iv. 13- midst. They had received the strangers with open arms. 

IS * They had lavished their s}^mpathy on the ailing Apostle 

1 Cp. p. 108. 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 195 

and enthusiastically embraced his message. And then, when 
the Judaists appeared, they lent to their representations a no 
less facile ear, and incontinently abjured the cause which 
they had so rapturously espoused. 
The procedure of the Judaists was base and unchivalrous. a threefold 

Y . , . , , 1 indictment. 

It was a personal campaign, an envenomed and unscrupulous 
attack upon the Apostle. There were three counts in their 
indictment. Like their Macedonian confreres they assailed 
his conduct and his Gospel. They charged him with un- 
principled plausibility, and they fastened particularly on his 
gracious concession to Jewish sentiment in circumcising 
Timothy, representing it as a shameless inconsistency, a 
1 rebuilding of what he had pulled down.' And they assailed Cf. ». 18. 
his Gospel of Justification by Faith apart from the Works of 
the Law, insisting that it issued in antinomianism, and 
adducing in evidence the moral laxity which, in Galatia as 
in Macedonia, the Gentile Christians too often displayed. 
Their chief attack, however, was directed against his 
Apostleship. They did not indeed absolutely deny it, but 
they alleged that he had received it from the original Apostles, 
the men who had known the Lord in the days of His flesh 
and had been called and commissioned by Him. These 
were the true * pillars ' of the Church, and Paul's claim to 
equal authority with them was an audacious usurpation. 

It was a heavy grief to him when the tidings of the Galatian The 
defection reached his ears. He could not believe that it was Stress. 3 
deliberate or final ; and, remembering the devotion of his cf. m. 4 ; v. 
converts, he was sure that, if only he could hasten to them l?J . 

'J Cf. iv. 19, 

and reason with them, all would yet be well. Meantime this 20. 
was impracticable, since he must remain a while at Antioch. 
As soon as he might he would visit them and disabuse their 
minds ; but the situation was serious and demanded prompt 
intervention, and so he immediately addressed himself to the 
writing of a letter, probably employing Timothy as his 
amanuensis. 

The Letter to the Galatians 

The letter is the impassioned outpouring of a wounded The 
and troubled heart, a swift and indignant protest against address - 



196 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

an unexpected and intolerable wrong. He plunges straight- 
way in medias res without his accustomed greeting and 
commendation. Commendation indeed was impossible, and 
in its stead he substitutes a pained and astonished remon- 
strance. In the very first sentence he introduces the ques- 
tion of his Apostleship. His Gospel, he asserts, was no 
human tradition but a divine revelation, and his ordination 
was a direct commission from the Risen Lord. 

i. i Paul, an Apostle not from men nor through a man but 

through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him 

a from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me, to the 

3 churches of Galatia. Grace to you and peace from God 

4 our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself 
for our sins that He might pluck us from the present evil age 

5 according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be 
the glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

An in dig- He opens his argument with a pained and indignant 
remonstrance : ' I wonder that you are so quickly deserting ' ; 
and there is, as St. Chrysostom remarks, a note of reassurance 
in the words. He does not say that they ' had deserted ' 
but that they * were deserting ' ; suggesting that their 

cf. v. io. apostasy was not yet a fait accompli and might even now, as 
he fondly believed, be arrested. The reason of his surprise 
was their misapprehension of the situation. There was in 
truth no difference between himself and the original Apostles. 
Their Gospel and his, as he presently demonstrates, were 
identical, and it was only Judaist perversion that made them 
out different. He and Silas had made this plain when they 
delivered the decree of the Council to the Galatian Churches. 
They had strongly warned them then against accepting any 
other Gospel, and now he reiterates the warning. 

6 I wonder that you are so quickly deserting 1 from Him who 

7 called you in Christ's grace, to a different Gospel, which is not 
really other than mine save that there are certain men who 
are disturbing you and desiring to pervert the Gospel of the 

1 fxerarldeadai denoted primarily military desertion (cf. App. Iber. 17 : croi 5i' 
atirovs is Pw/ualovs /xeridevTo), then change of opinion. Thus Dionysius of 
Heracleia, who left the Stoics for the Epicureans, was termed 6 fieTa.dejj.tvos, * the 
Turncoat' (Diog. Laert. vii. 166). 



nant 
remon- 
strance. 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 197 

8 Christ. 1 But if any one — even we or an angel from heaven — 
preach to you another Gospel than we preached to you, let him 

9 be accursed. As we have previously said, I now repeat : 
If any one preaches another Gospel than you received, let him 
be accursed. 

This is strong language, and he glances contemptuously An aside, 
at the Judaist calumny which construed his gracious and 
conciliatory attitude as smooth-tongued plausibility and 
charged him with caring more for man's approbation than 
for God's. 

xo Am I now ' persuading men rather than God ' ? or seeking 
to ' please men ' ? Had I still been ' pleasing men/ I would 
not have been Christ's slave. 

And now he deals with the attack upon his Apostleship a divine 
and his Gospel ; and he refutes it by an appeal to historical ^f atlon 
facts. It was true that he had never known the Master in divine com- 
the days of His flesh, but he had seen Him, the Risen and 
Glorified Lord, on the road to Damascus. That experience, 
as the Galatians knew, had revolutionised his life ; and the 
reason was that the Saviour had then been revealed to him 
and had called him to preach His Gospel among the Gentiles. 
It was a divine revelation and a divine commission, and it 
had received no human confirmation. He did not repair 
to the Apostles at Jerusalem for approval or instruction, but 
retired to Arabia and after a season of solitary meditation 
returned to Damascus and proclaimed the Gospel which 
the Lord had taught him and commissioned him to preach. 

11 Now as regards the Gospel which was preached by me, I 
would have you know, brothers, that it is not a Gospel accord- 

12 ing to man. For it was not from man that I received it or 
was taught it ; no, it was through a revelation of Jesus Christ. 

13 You have heard of my career once in Judaism — that I passed 
all bounds in persecuting the Church of God and devastating it, 

14 and outstripped in Judaism many contemporaries among my 
people in the exuberance of my initial zeal 2 for the traditions 

15 of my forefathers. But when it was the good pleasure of Him 

who set me apart ' from my mother's womb ' and called me Cf. Jer. i. 5. 

1 Cf. Ramsay, Hist. Cotnm. on Gal. y pp. 260 ff. 
1 Cf. n. on ii. 14. 



198 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Subsequent 
relations 
with the 
Twelve : 

(i) First 
visit to 
Jerusalem. 



1 6 through His grace, to reveal His Son in me * that I might 
preach His Gospel among the Gentiles, I held no immediate 

17 communication with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to 
Jerusalem to the men who were Apostles before me. No, I 
went away to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. 

It thus appeared that neither his Gospel nor his Apostle- 
ship was in the first instance derived from the Twelve ; and 
his independence of their instruction and authority was 
demonstrated by his subsequent relations with them. It was 
not till the summer of the year 36, three years after his 
conversion, that he paid his first visit to Jerusalem. 2 Mean- 
while he had been preaching his Gospel at Damascus, and 
during his brief stay of a fortnight at the sacred capital he 
saw only Peter and James, the Lord's brother. It was a 
purely personal visit, devoted to friendly intercourse. He 
was not presented to the Church ; he neither sought nor 
received official recognition ; and the evidence was that on 
his departure he was still a stranger to the churches of 
Judaea. He betook himself to Tarsus, and busied himself 
for the next nine years in evangelising the Province of 
Syria-Cilicia ; and it surprised the Judaean Christians when 
they heard how their whilome persecutor was employed. 
It would have been no surprise to them had he carried from 
Jerusalem the seal of apostolic sanction. 

18 Then three years after I went up to Jerusalem to view 

19 Cephas, 3 and I stayed with him for fifteen days. And no 
other of the Apostles did I see except James the brother of the 

20 Lord. Now in what I am writing to you, look you, before God 
21 1 am not lying. Then I went away to the regions of Syria 

22 and Cilicia. And I was personally unknown to the Christian 

23 Churches of Judaea ; only they were always hearing : ' The 
man who was our persecutor once, now is preaching the Gospel 

24 of the Faith which he once devastated ! ' And they glorified 
God in me. 

(2) The His next interview with the Apostles was the Conference 
at°jeri- nce at Jerusalem in the autumn of 46, the fourteenth year after 
saiem. y s conversion ; 4 and what then transpired was decisive. 

1 I.e., 'in my person,' as the scene or arena of the revelation. Cf. ver. 24; 
Phil. i. 30; 1 Tim. i. 16; Mt. xiv. 2. 

• Cf. pp. 58 ff. * Cf. p. 59. 4 Cf. pp. 73flf, 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 199 

The question of the permanence of the Law had been raised 
by the Judaists. They demanded the circumcision of Titus, 
the young Gentile convert who had accompanied him from 
Antioch ; but he had stoutly refused, and he had won the 
support of the Twelve, whom the Galatian propagandists 
lauded in his disparagement as ' the reputed men,' the 
' pillars ' of the Faith. They had approved his Gospel and 
recognised his call to evangelise the Gentiles. 



ii 1 Then after an interval of fourteen years x I again went up 
to Jerusalem, accompanied by Barnabas ; and I took Titus 

2 also with me. It was in pursuance of a revelation that I 
went up ; and I communicated to them the Gospel which 
I am proclaiming among the Gentiles, but privately to ' the 
reputed men ' : perhaps, methought, the course I am 

3 running or have run may have an empty issue. 2 Yet neither 
was Titus my companion, Greek as he was, compelled to 

4 be circumcised. The suggestion, however, was made in 
deference to the false brothers who had been smuggled into 
the conference. They had stolen in to spy upon our freedom 
which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might reduce us 

5 to slavery. But not for an hour did we yield in submission, 
that the truth of the Gospel might still remain with you. 3 

6 Now from ' the men reputed to be something ' — whatever 
they once were makes no difference to me : God does not 
accept any man's person 4 — to me ' the reputed men ' com- 

7municated nothing. On the contrary, when they saw that 
I had been entrusted with the Gospel for the Uneircumcision 

8 as Peter had been entrusted with it for the Circumcision — for 
He who had operated in Peter's heart to make him an Apostle 
to the Circumcision, had operated in mine also for the 

9 Gentiles — and when they recognised the grace which had 

been given me, James and Cephas and John, ' the men cf. Rev. Hi. 
reputed to be pillars/ plighted fellowship with Barnabas and I2 - 

1 Cf. Append. I. 

* Cf. Moulton, Gram, of Gk. Test., Proleg. y p. 193. 

3 On the text, involving the question whether Paul resisted or conceded the 
Judaist claim, cf. p. 75« 

4 Cf. Rom. ii. II. irpSjwirov \a/j.(3&veii> is a Hebrew phrase, tffo) QtjjS 

T T • T 

(cf. Job xiii. 10), signifying 'take at face- value,' regard a man for his outward 
appearance or external circumstances (wealth, rank, and the like) without con- 
sidering his character, his intrinsic worth. By oirofol irore ^aav Paul means their 
knowledge of the Lord in the days of His flesh ; and he dismisses as trpodwrroK^jxypia 
the Judaistic insistence upon this accidental circumstance. 



soo LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

me 1 on the understanding that the Gentiles should be our 
io province and the Circumcision theirs ; stipulating only that 
we should remember the poor. And this was indeed the very 
thing that I was anxious to do. 

( 3 ) The Three years later at the close of 49 the legitimacy of Paul's 

at Ant£ch. Gospel was again challenged by the Judaists when they 
visited Antioch in pursuance of their propaganda. 2 It 
chanced that Peter was there, and he, the chief ' pillar/ 
stultified himself by weakly bowing before the storm of their 
invective. But Paul's fearless steadfastness rallied him, 
and he acknowledged his fault. 

11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his 

12 face because he stood condemned. 3 For ere certain men had 
come from James, he would eat with the Gentiles ; but when 
they came, he drew off and kept himself apart for fear of the 

13 champions of circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also 
joined in his masquerading, insomuch that even Barnabas was 

14 carried away by it. But when I saw that they were not keeping 
by the straight path of the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas 
in presence of all : ' If you, being originally a Jew, 4 live after the 
Gentile and not after the Jewish fashion, how is it that you 
are compelling the Gentiles to judaise ? ' 

justifica- Now that he has, by an appeal to incontrovertible and 

Faith at- acknowledged facts, vindicated the divine authority of his 

experience. Apostleship and the legitimacy of his Gospel, Paul addresses 

himself to the vital issue. In opposition to the Judaist 

1 $e£t<£, 'right hand,' bore the general signification of 'pledge.' Suid. : Seeds' 
<rvv6riKas. Cf . 1 Mac. xi. 50, 62 ; xiii. 50, where a single person is spoken of as 
giving 5e£ids, not 8e£idv. * Cf. pp. I08ff. 

8 Some of the Fathers, particularly Chrys. and Hieronym., conceived that the 
contention at Antioch was simulated. There was really no difference between 
Paul and Peter, and they got up the dispute and carried it through that the 
Judaists might be admonished by the latter's submission. ov Mx 1 ?* ty T °- 
p-qfiara dXV olxovofilas. This would have been viroKpiais, ' play-acting ' (cf. The 
Days of His Flesh, p. 102), but not the sort Paul charges Peter with. 

4 vTrdpxeiv, 'be at the outset,' 'exist to begin with,' denoting an antecedent 
condition which essentially affects the situation. Suid. : rb virdpxw ovx air\u>$ 
' rb elvai' <rrifxa.[v€i d\Xd 'to ir&Xai elvcu,' kcu ' irpoeivcu,' * Qdaveiv.' Plat. Tim. 
30 C : totjtov S J virapxovTos, his positis, 'this granted,' 'assuming this.' Rep. 
458 A: Sevres cor vTrapxoy, 'assume,' 'take for granted.' Diog. Laert. iii. 99: 
4» 5Z vir&pxei irdvTa ravra, odros iartv evbaifxwv reX^cos, 'the possession of all 
these things is the antecedent condition of perfect happiness.' Cf. Ac. xxvii. 
34 : 'this is an essential condition of your preservation.' Phil. ii. 6. 






DEFECTION IN GALATIA 201 

insistence on the permanent obligation of the ceremonial 
Law and the necessity of its observance by Gentile converts, 
he demonstrates his doctrine of Justification by Faith in 
Christ ; and he introduces the argument in a passage which 
is intelligible only when it is recognised as a personal soliloquy, 
an autobiographical retrospect, a review of his spiritual 
progress from the Law to Faith. 1 The starting-point is the 
discovery of the insufficiency of legal observance and the 
necessity of faith in Christ. This is followed by a discom- 
fiting experience. Faith does not bring immediate deliver- 
ance. Sin still dwells in the believer and exerts its unhallowed 
tyranny. Indeed it is only when one is ' in Christ ' that one 
realises what sin is and how hard is the attainment of holi- 
ness. It seems as though Christ were a minister not of 
righteousness but of sin ; and two temptations present them- 
selves. One is to acquiesce in moral imperfection, and con- 
clude that holiness is no evangelical concern. Faith is 
sufficient for salvation, and works matter nothing. This is 
the antinomian attitude, and too many of the Apostle's 
converts adopted it. But where the spiritual instinct is 
keen, the temptation is rather to despair of the efficacy of 
faith and revert to the Law. This is the attitude which the 
Judaists imputed to Paul. They pointed particularly to 
his circumcision of Timothy and construed it as a confession 
of the necessity of legal observance, and they sneered at 
him for ' rebuilding what he had pulled down.' His reply 
is that if this were his attitude, he would indeed prove himself 
a transgressor, not against the Law but against something 
holier. He would be ' setting aside the grace of God.' 
For faith brings a high and sure deliverance through mystic 
union with Christ. This is a thought which his experience 
revealed to Paul ever more clearly. The believer is identified 
with Christ at each successive stage of His redemptive 
career — His Death, His Burial, His Resurrection, and His 
Risen Life. 

1 The passage is not a continuation of the remonstrance with Peter. At ver. 
14 the historical review ends, and ver. 15 begins the doctrinal discussion (Theod. 
Mops., Calv., Grot). Galatians is a hasty sketch of the argument subsequently 
elaborated in Romans, and this passage is a forecast of the Apostle's spiritual 
autobiography in the latter (vii). 



202 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

15 We, Jews by nature and not ' sinners of the Gentiles ' 

16 yet knowing that a man is not accounted righteous on the 
score of works of the Law unless accompanied by faith in 
Christ Jesus, even we had faith in Christ Jesus, that we 
might be accounted righteous on the score of faith in Christ 
and not on the score of works of Law, because on the score 

Ps.cxiiii.2. of works of Law ' no flesh will be accounted righteous.' 

17 Now if in seeking to be accounted righteous in Christ * we 
were ourselves also found sinners, is Christ then a minister 

18 of sin ? Away with the idea ! 2 For if I am ' building 
again what I pulled down,' I am proving myself a trans- 

i9gressor. For through Law I died to Law that I might live 
20 to God. I have been crucified with Christ ; and it is no 
longer I that live but Christ that lives in me ; and the life 
which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith — faith in the 
Son of God who loved me and surrendered Himself for me. 
21 1 do not set aside the grace of God ; for if righteousness be 
through Law, then Christ died for naught. 

The Gala- Thus experience attests faith as the only pathway to 
Son & e e ° righteousness ; and here lay the marvel of the Galatians' 
denial of defection. They had abandoned the Gospel of Faith and 

experience. J r 

adopted the old futile method of ceremonial observance ; 
and it was a denial of their own blessed experience. It was 
inexplicable ; it seemed as though an evil eye had bewitched 
them. 

x h XpHTTip, a formula expressing succinctly the believer's relation to Christ 
and all that flows therefrom ; never in Synoptics and in Fourth Gospel only in 
connection with 'abide,' 'be one.' It is distinctively Pauline, and refers exclu- 
sively to the Risen Lord and the relation of believers to Him (cf. 2 Cor. v. 16). 
The idea is illustrated by various analogies : a man must be in the air to breathe, 
a fish in the water to live, a plant in the soil to grow. Observe the Pauline nexus 
of Christian experience: (1) Xpic-rbs inrkp rifJ-Ccv, 'Christ for us' — Substitution 
(cf. 2 Cor. v. 21). (2) Tjfxth h Xpiory, 'we in Christ' — Justification (cf. 2 Cor. 
v. 17 ; Rom. vi. 11). He died for all (cf. 2 Cor. v. 14, 15 ; Jo. iii. 16) ; there- 
fore all saved in posse, but none in esse unless ' in Christ, ' resting on Him by 
personal, appropriating faith. (3) Xpurrbs kv rifuv, 'Christ in us' — Sanctification 
(cf. Gal. ii. 20 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 5 ; Rom. viii. 10). Not only is an animal in the air 
but the air in the animal. (4) i^uets vnkp Xpiarov — Consecration (cf. 2 Cor. v. 
20). 

8 pLrj yivoiro, an emphatic repudiation of an untenable suggestion. In N. T. 
peculiarly Pauline — fourteen times in Epp. and once in Pauline Gospel (Lk. xx. 
16) ; but a common Jewish phrase, being negative of d^p, which is rendered 
yivoiro, 'so be it' in LXX (cf. Num. v. 22 ; Dt. xxvii. 1$; I Ki. i. 36 ; Pss. xli. 
13, lxxii. 19, lxxxix. 52, cvi. 48). Cf. Protev. Jac. vi : koX efcre Tras 6 \a6s f yivotro, 
yivotro, &/xr;v (response to the priestly prayer at the presentation of Mary). 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 203 

ill. 1 You witless Galatians ! who is it that cast a spell on you ? l 
— you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was placarded on the 

2 Cross. 2 This only I desire to learn from you : Was it on 
the score of works of Law that you received the Spirit or on 

3 the score of the hearing of faith ? Are you so witless ? 
After being initiated by the Spirit are you now attaining 

4 perfection by the flesh ? Did you suffer so much all to no cf. Ac. 

5 purpose ? — if it be indeed all to no purpose. He therefore xHi - 4S-5 2- . 
who is lavishing the Spirit upon you 3 and putting powers 20 

in operation within you — is it on the score of works of Law 

6 or on the score of the hearing of faith, as Abraham ' had Gen. xv. 6. 
faith in God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness ' ? 



This quotation introduces a further development of the Faith the 
argument. Not only is the doctrine of Justification by Faith of the 
demonstrated by experience but it is the doctrine of the Abraham 
ancient Scripture. It was on the score of his faith that 
Abraham was pronounced righteous ; and the blessing was 
not his alone : it was the heritage of his sons for evermore. 
And who are the sons of Abraham ? They are those w T ho 
share his faith, and not merely believing Jews but believing 
Gentiles as well, as the Scripture expressly declares ; for 
was not this the pre mise to Abraham : ' All the Gentiles 
shall be blessed in thee ' ? Indeed there is no other way ; 
for according to the Scripture the Law brings to erring men 
not a blessing but a curse, and Christ has redeemed us from 
its curse in order that we may by faith receive the promised 
blessing. 

1 The superstition of the malign influence of 4 an evil eye ' {6(f>da\fx6s p&<rKavos) t 
still prevalent in the East (cf. P. E. F. Q. St., July 1918. pp. 112 ff.), was uni- 
versal in ancient days. Its special victims were flocks, plants, and children. 
Cf. Verg. Ed. ill. 103 ; Plin. Nat. Hist. VII. 2 ; Plut. Symp. v. 7. 

* irpoypd<f)€Li', like p-oscribere (cf. Suet. Ner. 39), was used of a public intima- 
tion posted up by authority of the magistrates. Cf. a[£iovfxev -rr~]poypa<p7Ji>ai in a 
notice placarded by the strategus of Hermopolis Magna at the request of the 
parents of a spendthrift, intimating that they will not be responsible for his debts 
(Milligan, Gk. Pap. 27). i<XTavpufjJyos (cf. Mt. xxviii. 5 ; Mk. xvi. 6) represents 
the crucifixion not as a mere historic incident {(rravpwdeis) but as an abiding and 
eternal fact (cf. Jo. xx. 27 ; Rev. v. 6, xiii. 8). The chief authorities omit t-q 
aXydeLq. fxr) ireldeadou and iv vfilv. 

s eirixopriyeiv, ' furnish with lavish generosity.' A x°PVybs a t Athens was a 
wealthy citizen charged with the provision and equipment of a chorus for the 
performance of a drama in the theatre — a costly public service. Cf. 2 Cor. ix. 
10; Col. ii. 19; 2 Pet. i. 5, 11. 



204 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

7 You perceive, then, that it is those who hold by faith that 

8 are sons of Abraham. And since the Scripture foresaw that 
God accounts the Gentiles righteous on the score of faith, it 

Gen. xii. 3. preached the Gospel to Abraham beforehand : ' All the 

9 Gentiles will be blessed in thee. ' And so it is those who hold 
10 by faith that are blessed with faithful Abraham. For all who 

hold by works of Law are under a curse ; for it is written : 
Dt. xxvii. ' Cursed is every one who continues not in all the things which 
25 - 11 are written in the Book of the Law to do them/ Now that in 

Law no one is accounted righteous in God's judgment is plain, 
Hab. ii. 4. because ' the righteous man on the score of faith shall live.' 
Lev. xviii. 12 But faith is not the principle of the Law ; no, ' he who does 
5- 13 them will live in them.' Christ redeemed us from the curse of 

the Law by submitting Himself to cursing on our behalf * — 

Dt. xxi. 23. because it is written : ' Cursed is every one who is hanged on 

14 a tree ' — that the blessing of Abraham might reach to the 

Gentiles in Jesus Christ, that we might through faith receive 

the promise of the Spirit. 

Unaltered Faith, then, was the original condition of justification ; 

L ^ e and the Apostle proceeds to demonstrate that it is the con- 
dition still. The promise to Abraham had remained unful- 
filled until the Advent of Christ ; for it had been made to 
Abraham ' and to his seed/ and, he says, deftly employing 
against his Judaist assailants the fanciful method of 
Rabbinical interpretation, ' his seed ' here signifies not the 
multitude of his descendants but his one descendant, Christ. 
And that the promise might be sure all down the expectant 
ages, it was confirmed by a covenant. The initial condition 
of the covenant was faith ; and since a covenant, even a 
human covenant, is inviolate and, once it has been ratified, 
none of its terms may be set aside or modified, it is impossible 
that when the Law was given four hundred and thirty years 
later, it should have altered the covenant with Abraham 
and his Seed and substituted Works as the condition instead 
of Faith. That would have been an invalidation of the 
promise ; it would have eliminated the very idea of promise, 

J yep6/j.evo$ virep ij/iuiy Kardpa, 'having become a curse'" (cf. 2 Cor. v. 21). He 
did not become 'cursed' (Kardparos) or 'a sinner' (dyu.aproA.6s). He identified 
Himself vicariously with accursed sinners. Only personal sin makes one accursed. 
* Ideo non dixit : Foetus pro nobis maledictus sed maledictum ; is enim qui propter 
peccatum morti offerebatur, maledictus fiebat, in sua enim causa moriehatur 
(Ambrstr.). 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 205 

since a promise implies grace, and what is earned by works 
is not a free gift but a legal right. 

15 Brothers, I take an example from human affairs. 1 A 
covenant, though but a human covenant, once it has been 

16 ratified no one sets aside or adds new terms to it. Now to Gen. xii. 7, 
Abraham were the promises spoken ' and to his seed.' It xii . j ; r 5. 

is not said 2 ' and to his seeds ' in the plural, but in the singular xxil. 18, 
17 ' and to thy seed ' ; and this is Christ. 3 Here is what I mean : xxiv. 7. 
A covenant ratified beforehand by God the Law, which has Ex. xii. 40 
come into being four hundred and thirty years later, does not LXX - 
18 irratify to the invalidation of the promise. For if the inherit- 
ance be dependent on law, it is no longer dependent on 
promise ; whereas it is God's free gift to Abraham through 
promise. 

Here the Apostle pauses to consider two objections which judaist 
a Jew might urge against his argument and which had pre- ob J ectlons : 
sented themselves to his own mind when he was thinking 
out the problem of the relation between the Law and the 
Gospel. The first is : What is the use of the Law ? If (1) what is 
salvation be God's free gift, and we are saved by faith in \ h l L a e w °? 
Christ as Abraham was saved by faith in the Promise, why 
was the Law ever given ? What purpose does it serve ? 
His answer, which he subsequently elaborates in his great Rom. vii. 
encyclical on Justification by Faith, is that the function of fi- I3 20 ,Yv. 
the Law was not to achieve salvation but to discover sin. J 5. v - 2 °- 
It did not justify ; it condemned and revealed the need of a 
Saviour and drove men back in faith upon the Promise. And, 
he adds, it was in its very nature less gracious and sacred 
than the Promise. For the Promise was a direct word of 
God ; but in the giving of the Law Moses served as a mediator cf. Ex. xx. 
between God and the people. And neither did Moses receive I9 * 
the Law directly from God ; for, according to the Rabbinical 

1 Chrys. : tL tan f /caret &vdpu)7rov \eyu) ' ; il- audponrlvuv irapadeiyfidTUf . 

8 On this indefinite use of \iyei or 0r/cr£ (sc. ©c6j or 17 ypaftrj) introducing a 
quotation cf. Rom. xv. 10 ; Eph. iv. 8, v. 14 ; 1 Cor. vi. 16. 

8 A specimen of Rabbinical exegesis (cf. p. 27). Of course the argumenta- 
tion is impossible, since <nripjxa in the sense of 'offspring' is, like y^ a collec- 
tive noun, and the plur. could mean only ' seeds of grain ' ; nor does Paul employ 
it seriously. He is here speaking, as he proposed, Kara dydpuwov (Hieronym.). 
He borrows the method of his opponents, thus cleverly ' turning the tables ' 
against them. 



206 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

a. Ac. vii. theology, it was delivered to him on Mount Sinai by the 
fi 3 2. Heb ' ministration of angels. 1 Thus in the Law God is twice 

removed ; in th« Promise it is with Him alone that we 

have to do. 

19 What, then, is the use of the Law ? It was added to 
accentuate transgressions until the coming of the Seed to 
whom the Promise had been made ; and it was ordered through 

20 angels in the hand of a mediator. And where there is a 
mediator, there is not only one party ; but God is one. 2 



(2) is the But, it may be further objected, on this view the Law is 
opposition * n opposition to the Promise. It does not justify ; it con- 
Promise? demns, ano ^ thus extinguishes the hope which the Promise 
had inspired. No, answers the Apostle, the purpose of the 
Law was the ultimate and complete fulfilment of the Promise. 
It condemned the sinner in order that he might realise the 
impossibility of attaining righteousness by observance of 
its requirements and might welcome the Gospel of Justifica- 
tion by Faith in Christ. 

21 Is the Law, then, in opposition to the promises of God ? 
Away with the idea ! For had there been given a Law which 
could impart life, righteousness would have been indeed on 

22 the score of law ; but the Scripture has shut up the whole 
race in the prison of sin, that the Promise may be given, on 
the score of faith in Jesus Christ, to those who have faith. 

The Law a It were, however, a poor account of the Law's function 
for Rdth° n to represent it as merely a gaoler holding the condemned in 
durance until they were delivered by faith in Christ. The 
old dispensation was more than a term of imprisonment : it 
was a period of education. And the Law was more than a 
gaoler : it was, says the Apostle, employing a phrase which 
has no modern equivalent, ' a pedagogue,' which signifies 
literally ' a boy-leader ' and is perhaps most nearly repre- 

1 Cf Jos. Ant. xv. v. 3 ; Schtirer, II. i. p. 344. 

• It would be alike wearisome and unprofitable to adduce all the various inter- 
pretations of this passage (cf. Poole, Synops. Crit., and Alford). The meaning is 
plain when it is recognised that the ' mediator } here is not Christ (cf. I Tim. ii. 5 ; 
Heb. viii. 6, ix. 15, xii. 24) — a notion originated apparently by Origen (cf. Lom- 
matzscb, v. p. 273) and adopted by Chrys., Aug., Hieronym., Ambrstr. — but 
Moses (Basil., Greg. Nyss., Theod. Mops., Theodt). 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 207 

sen ted by ' tutor.' The pedagogue was not a teacher. He 
was a superior slave whose office was not merely to conduct 
the boy to his teacher but to superintend his manners and 
morals. 1 He was the boy's guide, and his office ceased when 
his charge attained maturity and, imbued with right prin- 
ciples, no longer needed dictation and control. And this 
was the function of the Law. It was the stern tutor of our 
wayward boyhood ; but now that we have attained spiritual 
manhood, ' the measure of the stature of Christ's fulness,' Eph.iv. 13 
we are ruled not by Law but by Faith. In Christ we are no 
longer children but full-grown sons ; for He is the Eternal 
Son, the Archetype of Sonship, and Faith conforms us to 
Him and imbues us with His Spirit. It ' clothes us with 
Him,' says the Apostle, employing an Old Testament figure. 
When the Spirit of the Lord took possession of a man, it cf. jud. vi. 
was said that 'the Spirit clothed him.' The man was, as *$ ; * 8 ?£' 
it were, an incarnation of the Spirit ; and our Lord employed Chr - xxiv - 

1 ... . TT . - . , . TT . ,. . . 2oinmarg. 

the ancient language in His last command to His disciples : 
' Tarry in the city, until you clothe yourselves with power Lk. xxiv. 
from on high.' And so by Faith's loving and adoring self- 49< 
surrender we ' clothe ourselves with Christ.' It is Faith that 
effects the transformation ; and it obliterates all accidental 
distinctions, and by conforming humanity to its Divine 
Ideal restores its primal unity. It reconciles the long 
antagonism between Jew and Gentile ; for since it was by 
Faith that Abraham was accounted righteous, we are his 
children and his heirs as we share his Faith. 



23 Ere the coming of faith we were shut up under Law's 
wardenship, awaiting the faith which should by and by be 

24 revealed. And so the Law served as our tutor until Christ's 
advent, 2 in order that we may be accounted righteous on 

25 the score of faith ; but now that faith has come, we are no 

26 longer under a tutor. For you are all through faith sons 

27 of God in Christ Jesus ; for as many of you as were baptised Cf. Rom. 
38 into Christ clothed yourselves with Christ. The distinctions g^ 1 -*^ 

of Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female col. til' 10! 

1 Cf . Plat. Lys. 208 c. 

* els Xpurr6y, not 'to bring us unto Christ, the Teacher,' which would require 
tt/)6i XpHrrSv, but 'with a view to Christ,' *.*., the attainment of spiritual 
maturity (cf. Eph. iv. 13). 



208 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

«9 disappear; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 1 And if 
you are Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, heir9 
according to promise. 

Tutelage Hence emerges the truth that Faith inaugurates a higher 
ship. and nobler condition ; and this the Apostle enforces by 
another illustration. He has likened our state under the 
Law to that of a boy under his pedagogue ; and now he 
likens it to that of an orphan minor who, according to the 
Syrian law which obtained in Southern Galatia, was placed 
by his father's will, for such term as the latter judged 
necessary, 2 under the tutelage of guardians and trustees 
responsible respectively for his person and his property. 
He was indeed a son and the heir of the estate ; but through- 
out his minority he was no freer than a slave, and only when 
the appointed term expired did he enter on his birthright 
and enjoy the privileges of sonship. That was our condition 
under the Law. We were indeed sons all the while, for we 
had been created in the image of the Eternal Son ; but we 
had forfeited the status of sonship, and we were no better 
than slaves with darkened hearts, until the Eternal Son 
appeared and by putting His Spirit into our hearts taught 
us to recognise our Father and restored us to our original 
and proper status. 

iv. i Here is my meaning : All the time the heir is a minor, 3 
he differs in no respect from a slave, though he is lord of all, 

2 but is under guardians and trustees during the term appointed 

3 by his father. So we also, when we were minors, were 

4 enslaved under the world's dim lights ; 4 but when the time- 

1 Christ, the new Head of humanity, restores the lost unity which it had t<£ 
\6ycji ttjs (pvaeus (Theod. Mops.) in Adam. In Him we are no longer scattered 
and alien fragments but a living unity (eh), as the branches, while distinct, are all 
one in the living vine. 

2 According to Roman law the ward was free from his guardians (tutores, 
lirlrpoTroi) when he reached the age of fourteen, and from his trustees (curatores, 
oIkovo/xoi) at twenty-five. Cf. Ramsay, Hist. Comm. on Gal., pp. 391 ff. 

3 vrjirios, properly 'an infant,' generally 'one underage.' Tertullian (De Virg. 
Vel. 1 ) distinguishes four stages in the historical development of religion : 
(1) rudimenta — natural religion; (2) infantia — the Law and the Prophets; 
(3) juventus — the Gospel ; (4) maturitas — the Paraclete. 

4 CTOLxeiov, from <tt<hx<>s, 'a row,' 'line,' or 'rank,' bore three meanings. 

1. A letter. Cf. ra croix^a, 'the Alphabet.' Hence aroixela signified 'rudi- 
ments.' Cf. Heb. v. 12. Euclid's aroix^a, 'the Rudiments of Geometry.' 

2. The rudiments of the universe, the four 'elements' of fire, water, air, and 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 209 

limit expired, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born 

5 under Law, to redeem those who were under Law, that wt 

6 might recover the status of sonship. 1 And because you are 
sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, 

7 crying, ' Abba! Our Father! ' 2 And so you are no longer 
a slave but a son. And if you are a son, you are also an 
heir ; and it is God's doing. 



Here lay the marvel of the Galatians' defection. They a pained 

remon- 
strance. 



were converts from heathenism, and their old idolatry had r ' 



been a degrading bondage ; yet after tasting the sweetness 
of the liberty of sonship they had reverted to bondage, ex- 
changing the clear light of the Gospel for the dim lights of 
Judaism. Could it be that the Apostle's labour on their 
behalf had been lost ? He refuses to believe it, and he appeals 
to their chivalry. He was a Jew, yet that he might win the 
Gentiles he had identified himself with them and incurred 
obloquy and persecution : should not they be true to him ? 

earth. Cf Wisd. of Sol. vii. 17 ; 2 Pet. iii. 10, 12. Suid. : (rroixeiSv i<rnv i% 
oC xpcbrov yiverai ra yivS/xcva ical els 6 2ox aT0V &va\iera.t. Hence, as an 
astronomical term, 'the heavenly bodies.' Cf. Just. M., Apol. 1. p. 44 a (ed. 
Sylburg.) : to. ovp&vta oroixeia. Metaphorically 'great luminaries,' distinguished 
personages. Cf. Poly crates in Eus. If. E. III. 31 : KO.ro. ttjv 'Act Lav fityaXa 
aroixeLo. KCKot/xrjTai.. 3. A 'spirit' or 'demon,' since each element had its genius 
or tutelary spirit. Cf. Rev. vii. 1 (the angels of the winds), xiv. 18 (the angel of 
fire), xvi. 5 (the angel of the waters). By to, <rrotxe?a tov k6o-/j.ov (cf. Col. ii. 8, 
20) the Apostle means Judaistic observances, and the phrase was explained in 
two ways by the Fathers. (1) The Jewish 'days, months, seasons, and years' 
(ver. 10), which were regulated by 'the luminaries of the world.' Chrys. (cf. 
Theod. Mops., Ambrstr.) : l ra otoix&o, tov k6o/aov, that is, new moons and 
Sabbaths; for these days arise for us from the course of moon and sun.' (2) 
' The rudiments,' the crude ideas of the Jewish Law, were an elementary 
stage in the world's religious education, quasi initio, et exordia literarum 
(Hieronym.). The former interpretation is near the mark. The Jewish ordi- 
nances were 'the lights of the world,' because they were the best illumination 
that the world had in those days, and, though divinely appointed, they were dim 
compared with the light of the Christian revelation. 

1 vlodeala is literally 'setting in the place of a son,' and Paul always uses the 
term in accordance with this its proper signification. ' Adoption ' in his conception 
is not the introduction of aliens into God's family but the reinstatement of sons in 
their birthright (cf. ver. 6). diroXafi^dveiv is not simply 'receive' but 'get back' ; 
and so rrjv vlodeolav diroXd^jxev means 'recover our lost status of sonship.' Cf. 
The Atonement in the Light of History and the Modern Spirit, pp. 147 ff. 

1 This combination of the Hebrew address (N3X) and its Greek equivalent 

(6 Uari/ip) was apparently a liturgical formula. Cf. Mk. xiv. 36 ; Rom. viii. 15. 
O 



2io LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

He was confident that they would : for he remembered their 
overflowing kindness to him at his first appearance among 
them. And it was precisely this that made him wonder at 
their present attitude. The blame did not lie with him ; 
for he had loved them all along even in his sternest remon- 
strances. Nor did it he with them : they had done him no 
wrong. It lay with the men who had misled them and 
alienated their affection from him by insidious calumnies. 
They must not imagine that in saying this he was jealous of 
the influence which the Judaists had won over them in his 
absence. He could not always be with them, and it pleased 
him that others should visit them and pay them the attentions 
which he would fain pay them himself. But this was his 
complaint — that the attentions of the Judaists were dis- 
honourable. It was not the good of the Galatians that they 
had in view, but the vindication of their own prestige. 
The end of their blandishments was to oust the Gentile 
Christians from their position of equality in the Chuich and 
oblige them to sue for recognition on the Judaistic terms. 

8 But in those days, not knowing God, you were enslaved to 

9 gods which were by nature no gods at all ; now, however, that 
you have recognised God or rather have been recognised by 
God, how is it that you are turning back again to the dim 
lights, so feeble and poor, and consenting to be again enslaved 

10 to them anew ? You are scrupulously observing days and 
ii months and seasons and years. 1 I am apprehensive about 

12 you : perhaps I have laboured on you to no purpose. 2 Cast 
in your lot with me, because I have cast in mine with you, 3 

13 brothers, I pray you. You have done me no wrong. You 
know that it was by reason of a physical infirmity that I 

14 preached the Gospel to you on the former of my visits ; 4 and 
what was trying to you in my physical condition you did not 
scorn or loathe. No, as though I had been an angel of God 

1 Sabbaths, new moons, feasts, .Sabbatical years. Cf. Col. ii. 16. 
1 Cf. n. on ii. 2. 

* yiveade ws £yw, 6'rt adyti u>j v/xets, ' become as I am, because I became as 
you are,' i.e., * I, originally a Jew, abjured Judaism and put myself in the position 
of you Gentiles' (Theod. Mops.). Chrys. supposes that Paul is addressing 
Jewish converts (rows i£ 'lovdaiwv) and appealing to them to follow his example 
in abandoning Judaism : ' become as I am, because I was once as you — zealous 
for the Law ' (cf. i. 14). ' I had this zeal long ago, but see how I have changed ' 
(Theodrt.). 

* Cf. Append. III. 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 211 

is you welcomed me, as though I had been Christ Jesus. What, 
then, has become of your reason for counting yourselves so 
happy ? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would 

16 have dug out your eyes and given them to me. And so I 

17 have turned your enemy by dealing truly with you ? x They 
are paying court to you — not honourably ; no, they wish to 

18 exclude you that you may pay court to them. But it is an 
honourable thing to be courted in an honourable cause — always, 

19 and not only when I am present among you, my children, who 
are costing me fresh travail-pangs until Christ be formed in 

20 you. 2 And I find myself wishing 3 to be present among you 
at this moment and change my tone : I am so perplexed 
about you. 

The Apostle's heart was overflowing with tender pity for Aiiogory of 
his misguided converts ; and, as though anxious to soften ^1 'anT' 
whatever severity might, in his vexation, have escaped his the free 
lips, he introduces an affectionate, almost playful appeal in 
the tone of a father remonstrating with his foolish children. 
' Come, my children ! ' he says, ' I will tell you a story.' cf. ver. 19. 
It is the old story of Hagar and Ishmael, and he spiritualises it Gen. xvi, 
after the manner of Rabbinical exegesis 4 and turns it into xxu r " 21, 
a parable of the relation between Law and Faith. 

21 Tell me, you who are wishing to be under Law, do you 

22 not hear the Law ? It is written that Abraham had two 
sons, one by the slave-girl and one by the free woman. 

23 But the child of the slave-girl is born according to the 
flesh, while the child of the free woman is born through the 

24 promise. And the story is allegorical. The mothers are 
two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai and bears a 

25 race of slaves ; and this is Hagar. Sinai is a mountain in 
Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem ; for 

26 she is in slavery with her children. 5 But the Jerusalem 

1 akydeueiv (cf. Eph. iv. 15), not merely 'speak the truth' but 'deal truly.' 
Cf. /Esop. Fab. 349 (Halm), The Boy and his Father : (pofiydeis 8e jxr} irus 6 
oveipos dX^devffr}, 'afraid lest the dream should prove true.' 

2 As the embryo is formed in the womb. The process of their spiritual birth 
must begin afresh. 

3 rj9e\ov, ' I was wishing all the time.' Cf. Rom. ix. 3 ; Ac. xxv. 22. 

4 Cf. p. 27. 

There is here a perplexing variety of readings. 1. KCFG, Vet. It., Vulg., 
Arm., /Eth. : rb 7<ip "Siua 6po% iarlv h tyj 'Apa/Stp, 'for Sinai is a mountain in 
Arabia.' 2. KLP, Syr., Chrys. and Gk. commentators generally: rb yap 
"Ayap Ziva 6pos £ctIv iv rrj'Apa^ia, 'for Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia.' 3. 
ABDE, Ambrstr. : to 8k "Ayap 2u'a 6pos lariv kv ry 'ApafiLa, 'now Hagar is 



2i2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

27 above is free, and she it is that is our mother. For it is 

written : 
*«• ii y . *• ' Rejoice, thou barren one who bearest not : 

Break forth and shout, thou who travailest not : 
For many are children of the desolate, more than hers 
who hath her husband.' 

28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise ; 
3 9but just as then the son according to the flesh persecuted 

Gen. xxi. 3° the son according to the spirit, so is it now also. But what 

io- says the Scripture ? ' Cast out the slave-girl and her 

son ; for the son of the slave-girl shall not share the 

31 inheritance with the son of the free woman.' Wherefore, 

brothers, we are not a slave-girl's children but the free 

v. 1 woman's. It was for freedom that Christ freed us : l 

stand firm, then, and do not again get into the grip of a 

yoke of slavery. 

a decisive The controversy turned on the rite of circumcision. The 
Judaists maintained that it was necessary to salvation, and 

Cf. Ac. xv. insisted that the Gentile converts should submit to it. And 
they found a powerful reinforcement of their contention in 
Paul's generous deference to Jewish sentiment in circum- 
cising Timothy. They represented this as a disavowal of 
his doctrine of the sole necessity of faith and a confession of 
the necessity of circumcision ; and he meets their allegation 
with a direct and emphatic contradiction. It was a per- 
version of his action. ' I Paul,' he says, ' I who am charged 
with admitting the necessity of circumcision, tell you on the 
contrary that, if you be circumcised, Christ will profit you 
nothing.' And the reason is that the admission of the 
necessity of circumcision in order to salvation would be a 
confession of the insufficiency of faith ; and there would 
then be nothing for it but to fall back on the old futile method 
of legal observance. It was thus a choice between Christ 
and the Law, Circumcision and Grace. 

Mount Sinai in Arabia.' The first is most strongly attested, and the others are 
probably transcriptional variations, rb yap "Ayap is dittographic ; and in the case 
of to 8k "Ayap a hasty copyist, with fjrts io-riu " Ayap fresh in his mind, mistook 
yip for "Ayap, and the conj. 84 was added. Once the corruption was established, 
rb "Ayap (for r\ "Ayap) required explanation ; whence the notion that "Ayap was the 
Arabian name for Sinai. Cf. Chrys. : "Ayap 4\4yero tj SotXy to 6k Siva 6pos 
ovtw ne0cpp.7]i>eveTai tjj eirixuplij) avruv yXibrry. This is a pleasant fancy, but it 
lacks evidence ; and it discredits Chrys. 's topographical reliability that he places 
the mountain adjacent to Jerusalem, explaining cwcttoix^ by ytiTviafci, dirrerai. 
1 Cf. p. 265. 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 213 

The defection of the Galatians was an inexpressible amaze- 
ment to the Apostle ; it had so falsified the promise of their 
early career. The only explanation was that it was not 
their own doing. They had been misled. The Judaists 
accused him of plausibility, unscrupulous persuasiveness, Cf. i. io. 
and he retorts the charge. It was their ' persuasion ' that 
had wrought the mischief, and it was a wicked persuasion : 
it was not God that had inspired it. The Judaists were 
a little coterie ; indeed it was all the doing of one man, 
that energetic organiser of the propaganda, and the success 
of his machinations exemplified the proverb that ' a little 
leaven leavens the whole mass.' The responsibility rested 
with him, and the Apostle not only exonerated his converts 
but confidently anticipated that they would see reason. 
How preposterous the situation was ! The Judaists on the 
one hand were persecuting him for preaching salvation by 
faith in Christ and thus ruling out circumcision, and on the 
other hand they charged him with admitting and proclaiming 
the necessity of circumcision. It was past patience ; and 
the Apostle is here betrayed by his exasperation into the one 
coarse sentence in all his extant correspondence. ' Would/ 
he cries, ' that those sticklers for circumcision would go the 
whole length in the way of mutilating the flesh ! ' 

2 Look you, I Paul tell you that, if you be circumcised, 

3 Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every 
man who is submitting to circumcision, that he is bound to 

4 do the whole Law. You are removed from Christ's sphere 
of operation 1 inasmuch as you are being accounted righteous 

5 in that of Law ; you are banished from Grace. As for us, 
it is by the Spirit on the score of faith that we are expecting 

6 the fulfilment of the hope of righteousness. For in Christ 
Jesus it is neither circumcision that is of any avail, nor un- 
circumcision, but faith operative through love. 

7 You were running honourably : who has checked you in 

8 your course of obedience to the truth ? 2 The ' persuasion ' 

1 KaT7)pyr)8r]Te airb rod XpurTov, constructio prcegnans, 'invalidated by being 
separated from Christ.' Cf. Rom. vii. 2, 6. 

8 The Apostle's favourite metaphor of the foot-race in the stadium. Cf. ii. 2 ; 
1 Cor. ix. 24-29 ; Phil. iii. 13, 14 ; 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. ivKdirreiv, a military term, 
'cut up a road' to render it impassable (cf. I Th. ii. 18). The variant avtuoxpev, 
though supported only by a few minuses., is very attractive, since toaicdirTeiv was 
used of the warders of the course {pafidodxoL, fj-acnyocphpoC) ' beating back ' a 
runner who violated the rules (cf. 2 Tim. ii. 5) and expelling him from the lists. 



2i 4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Cf. i Cor. 
v. 6. 



9 did not come from Him who is calling you. ' A little leaven 
io leavens the whole mass.' I have confidence in you in the 

Lord that you will take no other view ; and your disturber 
ii will bear the condemnation, whoever he may be. And as 

for me, brothers, if I am still proclaiming circumcision, why 

am I still being persecuted ? In that case the stumbling- 
12 block of the Cross 1 is invalidated. Would that your 

unsettlers would mutilate themselves outright ! 2 



The ethical 
question. 



Cf. v. i. 



Prov. xvii. 
14- 



In the churches of Galatia as in those of Macedonia and 
indeed all the Gentile communities which the Apostle 
evangelised, 3 the Judaists found a specious argument in the 
persistence among his converts of the low standard of 
heathen ethic. They adduced it as an evidence of their 
allegation that the Gospel of Justification by Faith apart 
from Works issued in antinomianism. And so he concludes 
his letter with an inculcation of moral purity. It was indeed 
a blessed truth that the Gospel had emancipated believers 
from the bondage of the Law and freed them from its 
intolerable yoke ; but their liberty was not licence. The 
Galatians had grievous need of this warning. They were a 
passionate and impulsive people, and the controversy had 
excited their animosities. It had banished love, and they 
were at each other's throats like quarrelsome dogs. It is 
written that ' the beginning of strife is as when one letteth 
out water ' ; and so it proved in Galatia. When the 
barrier of love was broken down, the full flood of evil passions 
was let loose and poured forth its devastating tide. 

And what was the remedy ? In our complex nature there 
are two domains — the flesh, which in fallen man is the seat 
of sinful passions ; and the spirit, the side of our nature 
which is akin to God and which is dominated by His Holy 
Spirit. And the secret of holiness lies in resolutely eschewing 
the former and dwelling in the latter and responding to its 

1 A twofold <rK&v8a\ov : (i) the idea of a crucified Messiah, since the Jews 
were expecting a victorious King ; (2) the necessity of an atonement, since on 
their view the Law — repentance and ceremonial observance — sufficed. 

8 avaararovv, ' disturb by political commotion ' (cf. Ac. xvii. 6 ; xxi. 38). 
Colloquially in Common Greek 'drive out of house and home,' 'upset.' Cf. 
Moulton and Milligan, Vocab. dwoKoxf/oPTai, like the emasculated priests of 
Cybele (Suid. : TdWoi' oi airoKOirot). Chrys. : d fSotiXovrcu, \jJr\ 7repLTe/j.pe<rdu<ra> 
pbvov d\Ad koX TrepiKOTTiaduxrap. * Cf. p. l6l. 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 215 

hallowed instincts. It is against the works of the flesh that 
the Law is directed ; and if we yield to the spirit's impulses, 
then the restraint of Law is unnecessary. 

13 It was with a view to freedom, brothers, that you were called ; 
only do not make your freedom an outlet for the flesh. 1 No, 

14 through love be one another's slaves. For all the Law is fulfilled 

in a single precept : ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' L« v - »*• 

15 But if you snarl and snap at one another, beware lest you be x * 
consumed by one another. 

16 Here is my meaning : Comport yourselves by the spirit, and 

17 no desire of the flesh will you ever perform. For the desire of 
the flesh is so against the spirit's and the spirit's so against 
that of the flesh — for these are mutually antagonistic — that 

18 whatever things you will you may not do. But if you are led 
by the spirit, you are not under Law. 

That there may be no misunderstanding and no evasion The works 
the Apostle descends to particulars and specifies the evils °nd h the esb 
which belong to the domain of the flesh and the graces which {TU }\ oi the 
grow in the soil of the spirit. The former he designates ' the 
works of the flesh ' and the latter ' the fruit of the spirit,' 
since the former are the unaided operations of our sinful 
nature, while the latter are nourished by heavenly grace as 
the harvest is nourished by the sunshine and the rain. 
' Why,' says St. Chrysostom, ' does he call them " the fruit 
of the spirit " ? Because the evil works arise from ourselves 
alone. Wherefore he calls them " works " ; whereas the 
good need not only our own diligence but also the philan- 
thropy of God.' The works of the flesh are a dark chaos, 
but the fruit of the spirit is a vital growth, an organic 
development. They fall into a triple triad : ' love, joy, 
peace ' — love yielding joy, and joy peace ; ' long-suffering, 
kindness, goodness ' — kindness being more than long- 
suffering, and goodness, the inward character, more than 
kindness, its outward expression ; ' fidelity, meekness, self- 
restraint ' — fidelity being possible without meekness, and 

1 d(popfirj (cf. Rom. vii. 8, II ; 2 Cor. v. 12, xi. 12) is used in a 4 th c. papyrus 
letter of the efflux or escape of water : fir] #6X171x775 odv, Kvpie, fuve fjueipcu] curbs 
rifiuju avpiov 8ta ri]v aapopfiriv rod iidaros elva 8vvrj9Qfief troTiaai rbv fiiyav ic\rjpov t 
* please then, sir, do not stay away from us to-morrow because of the outflow of 
the water, that we may be able to irrigate the large holding.' Moulton and 
Milligan, Voc. 



216 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

meekness being weakness unless it flows from self-restraint. 
And union with Christ ensures all these graces, since wc 
are then crucified with Him, raised with Him, and live with 
Him. 

i9 Now the works of the flesh are manifest. And these are 

20 fornication, uncleanness, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, 1 en- 
mities, strife, jealousy, frenzies, intrigues, divisions, factions, 

21 envies, drunken bouts, revelries, and so forth — things of which 
I warn you, as I have already done, that those who practise 

22 the like will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the fruit 
of the spirit is love, joy, peace ; long-suffering, kindness, 

23 goodness ; fidelity, 2 meekness, self-restraint. Against the 

24 like there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus 
have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires. 

The duty of A holy life is in the first instance personal, but it exhibits 
chanty, ^self in one's social relations ; and so after bidding his 
Cf. ver. 16 readers ' comport themselves b}f the spirit,' referring to their 
individual behaviour, the Apostle now further exhorts them 
to ' march by the spirit,' referring to their mutual intercourse. 
It is a military term, and it expresses the duty of loyalty to 
one's comrades, especially in this instance the duty of be- 
friending the weak and raising the fallen. It was a needful 
counsel ; for in their zeal against the alleged antinomianism 
of the Gospel the Judaists had dealt ruthlessly with moral 
delinquencies, and it appears that there was a particular 
case where the offender had been mercilessly handled and 
expelled from the Church's communion. This, in the 
Apostle's judgment, was a violation of Christian charity. 
Discipline is indeed a necessary office of the Church, but its 
aim is not the destruction but the restoration of the sinner. 
He is an erring brother, and the Church's concern is not to 
condemn but to ' restore ' him, even as a physician knits a 
broken limb or a fisherman repairs a torn net. Severity is 
the spirit of Pharisaism, not the law of Christ. It is un- 

1 Traffic with astrologers, fortune-tellers, and the like. Cf. Chrys. In Cap. I. 
Epist. ad Gal. 7 : ' Many Greek customs are kept among some of our people — 
omens and auguries, and tokens, and observations of days, and the casting of horo- 
scopes, and the scripts full of all manner of impiety which, as soon as their children 
are born, they put together to avert evil from their head.' Cf. Milligan, Gk. 
Pap. 47 — a 3 rd c. specimen of those magical incantations. 

? xlffTis, cf. Mt xxiii. 23 ; Rom. iii. 3 ; Tit. ii. 10. 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 217 

becoming in the truly ' spiritual ' ; and the Apostle repro- 
bates it by two trenchant considerations. One is the liability 
of the best of men to fall and find themselves in sore need 
of charity. And the other is the imperfection even of the 
highest achievement. It is easy to be proud and censorious 
if we compare ourselves with others and exalt ourselves at 
their expense ; but it humbles us when we consider how far at 
the best we have fallen short of our possibilities and oppor- 
tunities. And this is the ultimate test. ' Each will bear 
his own load.' We are like ships homeward bound. What 
counts is the cargo which each is bringing, and it were a 
sorry boast that one has a better cargo than another. It 
may still be a poor cargo, and the just boast is not that one's 
cargo is better than another's but that it is full and precious. 

25 If we live by the spirit, let us also march by the spirit. 1 

a6Let us not turn vain-glorious, provoking one another, 

vi. 1 envying one another. Brothers, if a man be detected in some 

trespass, you, the spiritual, restore 2 the offender in a spirit 

of meekness. Have an eye to yourself, lest you also be 

2 tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and thus you will 

3 fulfil the Law of Christ. 3 For if one fancies he is something 

4 while he is nothing, he is deluding himself. But let each 
prove his own work, 4 and then what he is himself will be his 
only ground of boasting and not what his neighbour is. 

5 For each will bear his own load. 5 

It is characteristic of impulsive natures that their generous The duty of 
impulses quickly flag ; and so it was with the Galatians. dealing^ 6 
They started bravely on the Christian race, but they soon cf. y. 7. 
tired ; they were lavish in their generosity to the Apostle cf. iv. 15. 
when he first came among them, but their affection presently 
cooled and they turned against him : and recently they had 
evinced their disposition in a somewhat sordid fashion. In 

1 croixeiv, 'walk in line,' 'keep step in the ranks' — a military term (cf. Xen. 
Cyrop. vi. iii. 34). Cf. Phil. iii. 16. 

* KarapTlfrTe, cf. n. on I Th. iii. 10, p. 16 1. 

8 These are your burdens, this your law — not ceremonial observances (cf. Lie 
xi. 46 ; Ac. xv. 10, 28) but one another's infirmities ; not the Law of Moses but 
the Law of Christ (cf. Jo. xiii. 34). 

* Cf. n. on 1 Th. v. 21, p. 165. 

6 pdpi) (ver. 2), the grievous burdens of sorrow and sin ; foprlov, a ' load,' $.g % 
a ship's ' cargo ' (cf. Ac. xxvii. 10). 



2iS LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

those days when as yet there was no written Gospel, the 
record of the Lord's ministry and teaching was an oral 
tradition, and there was an order of ' teachers ' or ' catechists' 
who had it by heart and, after the Jewish manner, drilled 
the churches in it by dint of repetition. 1 It was laborious 
work, and the catechist was entitled to remuneration. It 
was a debt of honour, and in the first flush of their enthusiasm 
the Galatians would gladly render it ; but as their ardour 
abated, they fretted and begrudged it. It was indeed a 
base dereliction, and the Apostle might justly have assailed 
it with indignant reprobation ; but he deals with it after his 
wont in a large spirit and unfolds the lofty principle which it 
involved. He quotes the ancient proverb : ' Whatever a 
man sows, this will he also reap.' 2 The harvest is determined 
by two conditions. One is the sort of seed which is sown : 
sow wheat, and you reap wheat ; sow tares, and you reap 
Cf. Mt, tares. And the other is the quality of the soil : a poor soil, 
a poor harvest. This is a law T of Nature, and it is inexorable : 
Nature is not mocked. And the law holds equally in the 
moral domain. Here there are two soils — the perishing 
flesh and the immortal spirit ; and each yields an appropriate 
harvest. The harvest of the flesh is, like itself, corruptible : 
it decays and perishes. But the spirit is immortal, and the 
harvest which it yields is eternal. And here lay the misery 
of the Galatians' ungenerous behaviour. They were sowing 
perishable seed in perishable soil. They might indeed reap 
the harvest of a little worldly enrichment, but it would profit 
them at the longest only for a brief space. Generosity, on 
the other hand, is sowing in the soil of the spirit, and it yields 
an eternal harvest of peace and joy : spiritual enrichment 
endures for ever. Selfishness is a short-sighted policy. It 
means grasping at the poor profit of the moment and letting 
slip the enduring prize. ' Honourable things/ says the 
proverb, ' are difficult ' ; 8 but it always pays to ' do the 

1 Cf. p. 80. 

* Cf . Job iv. 8. Schol. on Plat. Pkcedr. 260 D : iirl t&v TOiavra iraax^roiv 
ota edpaaav. vapTJKTai. 5& dVd rod (TtLxoV * ei d£ Kaica aireipeis, Kaxa Key d/xr/craLO,' 
Kai ira.\iv' ' tt 8£ Kaica aveipei, depiet Ka/ca KrjSea irauriv.' Cic. De Orat. II. 261 : 
' Ut sementem feceris, ita metes.' 

* Cf. Plat. Rep. iv. 435 : arws -yap, S> Sw/tpare*, rb \ey6fievoy a\rj6^ 5ri xaXexi 
t4 *a\d. The maxim is ascribed to Solon. 






DEFECTION IN GALATIA 219 

honourable thing/ and the difficulty is a challenge to our 
faith and courage. 

6 And let one who is being taught the Word by rote give his 

7 teacher a share in all his goods. Be not deceived : God is not 
mocked. ' Whatever a man sows, this will he also reap.' 

8 For one who sows in the soil of his own flesh, of the flesh will 
reap corruption ; while one who sows in the soil of the spirit 

9 will reap a life eternal. And let us do the honourable thing and 
never lose heart ; for at the proper season we shall reap if 

10 we do not faint. So then, while the season is ours, let us be 
doing the work of goodness by all, especially by the household 
of the Faith. 

The argument is now complete, and the Apostle, after his The sign- 
wont, 1 takes the pen from his amanuensis that he ma}/ manual - 
authenticate the letter by his autograph. As a rule the 
autograph was merely a benediction, but in his affectionate 
solicitude for his erring converts he expands it into a personal 
message. Fatigue and anxiety had unnerved him, and as 
his trembling hand shaped the words with more than the 
accustomed uncouthness, he playfully apologised for the 
ungainly scrawl. ' See,' he says, ' with what large letters 
I am writing to you with my own hand.' 2 Yet he persists. 
It seems that there were pusillanimous souls among the 
Gentile converts in Galatia who had been intimidated by 
Jewish violence and, though they cared nothing for the Law, 
professed zeal for it and sought to prove it by active 
proselytism. All their concern was to escape persecution 
for the Cross ; and thus, as the Apostle could testify, they 
missed the supreme benediction. The Cross was his only 
boast. The Galatians remembered how he had been stoned Ac. xiv. 19 
by the Jews at Lystra. He still bore the scars on his body 
and the stripes of the lictors' scourge, and these were no cf. 2 Cor. 
disfiguring mutilation ; they were a sacred seal, more sacred xl * 24, 25 * 
by far than the boasted circumcision of the Judaists. Even 

1 Cf. p. 155. 

2 eypaxf/a, epistolary aorist (cf. Moulton's Winer, p. 347). Taking it as an 
ordinary aorist ('I have written'), Chrys. regards the sentence as retrospective, 
referring to the entire letter, and supposes that in this instance the Apostle did 
not employ an amanuensis, since it was a stern letter and he would have no 
third party hear his reproofs ; ' which was a token of much generosity,' But in 
fact he observed no such secrecy (cf. i. 2). 



220 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

as heathen votaries branded the symbols of their deitie* 
on their arms and necks, so his scars were ' the brands of 
Jesus/ and he wore them proudly before the world. H» 
person was sacrosanct. 

xi See with what large letters I am writing to you 

13 with my own hand. as many as wish to show a fair 
face in the flesh, they it is that are compelling you 
to submit to circumcision, all to escape being perse- 

i3cuted for the cross of christ. for those who are 
submitting to circumcision do not even keep the law 
themselves j no, they wish you to submit to it that 

x4they may boast in your flesh. but far be it from 
me to boast except in the cross of our lord jesus 
Christ, through which 1 the world has been crucified 

15 to me and i to the world. for neither circumcision 
nor uncircumcision is anything, but a new creation. 2 

Pss. cxxy. 16 AND AS MANY AS MARCH BY THIS RULE, ' PEACE ' BE UPON 
5, cxxviii. T HEM AND MERCY, EVEN ' UPON THE ISRAEL ' OF GOD. 

17 Henceforth let no one annoy me ; for I bear on my 
body the brands of jesus. 8 

18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your 
spirit, brothers. Amen. 

The des- The letter would be despatched immediately ; for the 

letter. e situation demanded prompt intervention. If he might, the 

Cf. ir. so. Apostle would have hastened in person to Galatia and 

reasoned with his deluded converts face to face ; but this 

1 The antecedent of 81' oO is probably ry trravpy. If it were 'I^aov Xpivry, 
h v would be more natural. 

* ktL<tis, (i) the act of creating (cf. Rom. i. 20) j (2) the creation, the totality 
of created things (cf. Rom. viii. 22) ; (3) a creature, a single created thing (cf. 
Heb. iv. 13). 

* ffrLyfia occurs in various connections. Cf. Wetstein. A thievish or runaway 
slave was branded on the forehead with the letter F {fur oxfugitivus), whence he 
was designated a err ly par ids, litteratus, notatus, inscriptus (cf. Becker, Gallus y 
p. 222) ; criminals were similarly branded ; and soldiers sometimes tattooed their 
commander's name on their arms. None of these references, however, is suitable 
here, not even the last, since the soldier's o-rLyfut was merely occasional. The 
religious custom of branding symbols of a heathen deity on the body is exempli- 
fied in the action of Ptolemy Philopator when he compelled the Jews to be 
branded with an ivy-leaf, the emblem of Dionysus (cf. 3 Mace. ii. 29). This is 
probably the Apostle's reference : the Lord's sacra nota were on his body, and 
these made his person sacrosanct. It is an unfortunate suggestion that he play- 
fully represents himself as protected by a charm (Deissmann, Bibl. Stud., 
PP. 349 ff-)- 



DEFECTION IN GALATIA 221 

wai meanwhile impossible. He was needed at Antioch, and 
writing was the only way. He would despatch the letter 
without delay, and he would doubtless entrust it not to a mere 
courier but to some ' beloved brother and faithful minister cf. Col. it 
and fellow-slave in the Lord ' who could, in some measure, 7> 8 * 
supply his place and reinforce his written argument. Per- 
haps it was Silas. He was well qualified for the office alike 
by his personal character and by his acquaintance with the 
Galatian churches. 



THE THIRD MISSION 

* Micantis more lampadis 
Perfundit orbem radiis, 
Fugat errorum tenebras 
Ut sola regnet Veritas.' 

Latin Hymn. 



Ac. xviii. THE SETTING FORTH 

23. 

Sojourn at Paul must have required a season of repose after the labour 
Antioch. an( j anX 2ety of his second mission, but this was denied him. 
The world's need of Christ was like an importunate voice in 
his ears, and the unhappy plight of his Galatian churches 
was a heavy burden on his heart. He must straightway 
gird himself for another mission, and hasten first of all to 
Galatia and reinforce his letter by personal ministration. 
His stay at Syrian Antioch was therefore brief. He ' put 
in some time,' says the historian, indicating a season of 
impatient detention by mechanical though necessary em- 
ployments ; * and from the subsequent narrative it appears 
what the chief of these was. 
Organisa- There was always much poverty in Jerusalem, and it 
Gentile would seem that these were hard times in the city, and the 
charity to humbler sort of the Jewish Christians were in sore straits. 

the poor m ** r . . 

Jerusalem. Paul had observed their destitution during his recent visit, 
and he recognised here at once a duty and an opportunity. 
Already the Antiochene Christians had generously succoured 
the distress of their Jewish fellow-Christians, and they had 

Cf. Gai. ii. pledged themselves to continue their-benef action as occasion 
arose ; 2 but the need was great and ever increasing with 
the growth of the Church. The bounty of Antioch was in- 

1 ironf/vat xpbvov rivd, cf. Mt. xx. 12 (where fdav &pav woutv is contemptuously 
contrasted with paffT&feiy rb p&pos rrfi wtpas) ; Ac. xv. 33, xx. 3 ; Ja. iv. 13. 
» Cf. p. 73. 

222 



IO» 




40 



42 



THE THIRD MISSION 223 

sufficient, and Paul proposed that the Antiochene Church, 
as the mother of Gentile Christendom, should call upon her 
daughters to share the responsibility, and should authorise 
him to organise in every Gentile community a contribution 
for the relief of ' the poor among the saints at Jerusalem.' Cf. Rom. 
His proposal was heartily approved. The Church not only cor Z xvi\. 
furnished him with the authority he desired, but associated Cf 2 Cor. 
with him, apparently, two of its members as his coadjutors JJj l J X ij* I7( 
in the enterprise. One of these was Titus, that young l8 - 
Antiochene who had attended Paul and Barnabas on their 
errand of charity to Jerusalem seven years previously ; and 
his appointment was a felicitous, perhaps an intentional, 
stroke of policy. The association in the Apostle's company 
of the Gentile whom he had refused to circumcise at the 
bidding of the Judaists, 1 and of Timothy whom he had 
afterwards circumcised in consideration of his Jewish ante- 
cedents, was an impressive demonstration of his attitude 
toward the Law and an effective rejoinder to his Judaist 
calumniators. 

It was pure charity that dictated the organisation of a healing 
the relief fund, yet it promised at the same time to serve 
an ulterior end. So practical a demonstration of Christian cf. 2 Cor. 
brotherhood could hardly fail in commending the Gentile x " I2 " 14 " 
converts to the Jewish Church and in putting the Judaists 
to shame. Paul recognised in it the possibility of beneficent 
and far-reaching results. He anticipated the healing of the Cf. Rom. 
disastrous breach in the East, and he foresaw that this would x 
facilitate his farther ministry in the West and especially 
in the imperial capital which was already the goal of his 
desire. 

It was probably in the month of July that he set forth with Departure 
his companions on his third mission. Galatia was his imme- mission. 
diate destination, and he would travel hastily by the over- 
land route through the Cilician Gates. 2 He would visit the 
Galatian churches in succession — at Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, visitation 
and Pisidian Antioch. The historian intimates merely churches, 
that ' he made an orderly progress through the country, Ac. xvm. 
and confirmed all the disciples ' ; but, brief as it is, the 23 ' 
record is significant. It shows that the Apostle's purpose 

1 Cf. p. 74. ■ Cf. p. 104. 



XVI. I. 



29 ; xx. 4. 



224 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

was achieved. His letter and the ministration of Silas — if he 
was indeed its bearer — had turned the tide of disaffection 
and won back the ever impetuous Galatians to their allegi- 
ance ; and his visit completed the good work. He had the 
happiness of seeing his converts re-established in the Faith, 
and they gave practical assurance of their sincerity. Not 
cf. 1 Cor. only did they adopt the financial proposal and pledge them- 
selves to its support, but they furnished a fresh recruit to 
his little band of fellow-workers in the person of Gaius of 
f. Ac. xix. Derbe. At all events Gaius was with him at Ephesus and 
accompanied him thence to Achaia ; and the probability 
is that he joined the Apostle in his progress through Galatia. 



II 

Ac. xviii. MINISTRY AT EPHESUS 

24-xix. 20. 

journey to His destination on quitting Galatia was already fixed. He 
Ephesus. kad promised the Ephesians when he visited them on his way 

Ac. xviii. 

20, 21. to Jerusalem, that he would return and gratify their desire 
to hear more of his doctrine ; and now he hastens to redeem 
his pledge. If two full months be allowed for his ministry 
in Galatia, it would be about the beginning of October when 
he took his departure from Pisidian Antioch and turned his 
steps westward. The ordinary route was the busy highway 
along the valley of the Lycus and the Maeander, but this he 
avoided and, holding to the north, travelled across the 
sparsely peopled uplands. His reason was twofold — not 
only his old dread of venturing into that sweltering pass in 
the heat of autumn, 1 but a desire to expedite his arrival at 
Ephesus. Had he followed the trade route, he must have 
lingered by the way to preach at Colossae, Laodicea, and other 
cities ; and meanwhile he had a larger design. Ephesus was 
his goal, and if he won her, he would win Asia. 2 

1 Cf. p. 122. 

* In his Life of Polycarp (ii) Pionius represents Paul as visiting Smyrna in the 
course, apparently, of this journey from Galatia to Ephesus and staying there with 
Strataeas, a son of Eunice the daughter of Lois and thus a brother of Timothy. 
The passage so abounds in palpable inaccuracies as to possess no historical value. 
Smyrna was remote from his route, and in any case he was in haste to reach 
Ephesus and would linger nowhere. 



THE THIRD MISSION 225 

For Ephesus was justly styled ' the Light of Asia.' 1 She The capita- 
was the capital of that magnificent Province, the seat of the ° '" sia 
imperial Proconsul, and moreover the centre of that im- 
portant confederation, the Asiarchate. 2 It was ever theTheAsiar. 
wise policy of Rome to reconcile her subject peoples to her c 
dominion by respecting their amour propre and according 
them the utmost measure of autonomy compatible with 
their imperial relationship ; and a conspicuous example is 
the organisation of the chief cities of each province into a 
confederation or union. 3 These unions were mainly religious. 
They fostered the imperial idea by establishing the worship 
of the Emperor and erecting temples in his honour. Each 
city had its temple and priesthood, and the provincial High 
Priest was termed ' the Ruler ' of the Province. Thus, 
Galatia had its Galatarch, Bithynia its Bithyniarch, Pam- 
phylia its Pamphyliarch, and Asia its Asiarch. His principal 
function was the supervision of the cult of the Emperor 
throughout the province, but he was charged also with the 
presidency of games and festivals and the erection of monu- 
ments. The chief of these provincial unions was that of 
Asia ; and the Asiarch was, next to the Proconsul, the most 
important personage in the Province. He held office only 
for a term, whether a single year or, as seems more probable, 
a quinquennium ; and since, like the Jewish High Priest, 4 
he retained his title after the expiry of his term, there was Cf. Ac. xix 
a college of Asiarchs at Ephesus — the acting Asiarch and 3I " 
the Asiarchs emeriti. Combining national sympathy and 
imperial allegiance, they exerted a healing influence in the 
State, and served the cause of order on occasions of popular 
tumult. 

Ephesus was not only the capital of the Province of Asia, Com- 
but the leading city of Asia Minor ; and she owed her prosperity 
abounding prosperity, in the first instance, to her geographical 
position. 5 Situated close to the mouth of the river Caystros, 
she was a busy seaport with extensive docks despite the 

1 Plin. Nat. Hist. v. 31 : 'lumen Asise.' 

8 Cf. Lightfoot, A post. Fath. it. iii. pp. 404-415. 

8 kolvqv, commune. 



P 



* Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 464. 

1 On the city of Ephesus cf. Strabo, 639-42. 



226 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

troublesome accumulation of alluvial deposit ; and it assured 
her an enormous commerce that she was the western terminus 
of the important trade route to the Euphrates. 

intellectual She was famous also in literature and art. The catalogue 
' of her distinguished sons includes the names of the philo- 
sopher Heracleitos and his friend Hermodoros who so pro- 
voked the jealousy of the citizens that they banished him, 
bidding him, if he would surpass his fellows, surpass them 
elsewhere, 1 and who acted as interpreter to the Roman 
Decemvirs when they drew up their Twelve Tables, the 
foundation of Roman jurisprudence, after the model of the 
laws of Solon ; 2 the poet Hipponax ; the painters Parrhasios 
and Apelles ; and in later times Alexander, who was styled 
' the Lamp ' for his many-sided brilliance as an orator, a 
statesman, an historian, a poet, an astronomer, and a 
geographer. 

'he Her principal glory, however, was her Temple of Artemis, 

Artemis. which ranked as one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient 
world. 3 The original temple had been burned to the ground 
on the night when Alexander the Great was born, having 
been fired by Herostratos, an ambitious madman who, 
since he could not achieve fame, coveted notoriety. 4 It 
was, however, rebuilt on a larger scale and in greater magnifi- 
cence. Its walls and pillars were gleaming marble, and the 
interior was fitted with ivory, cypress, and cedar. 5 Its 
length was four hundred and twenty-five feet, and its breadth 
two hundred and twenty ; while its stately columns, num- 
bering a hundred and twenty-seven arid each erected by 
a king, were sixty feet in height. 6 It was two hundred 
and twenty years in building, and the enormous cost was 
defrayed by the whole of Asia with a splendid devotion like 

cf. Ex. Israel's at the making of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, 
even the women contributing their jewels and ornaments. 7 



xxxv. 20 



1 Strabo, 642: (pavres' yfiiuv prjSeU 6vr)X<rTos eVrw' el 8t /u.77, AWy re /cat /j.€t' 
&\\uv. Cf. Cic. Tusc. Quast. v. 36. 

2 Strabo, 642. 

* Cf. Phil. Byzant. De Sept. Orb. Sped. 

4 Cf. Strabo, 640 ; Plut. Alex. 3 ; Cic. De Nat. Deor. II. 27 ; Val. Max. 
VIII. 14. 

* Plin. Nat. Hist. XVI. 79. 

* Ibid, xxxvi. 21. * Strabo, 640. 



THE THIRD MISSION 227 

The chief treasure of the temple was an image of the The ima?c 
goddess — a pedestal surmounted by a bust which was studded dess. e 
with breasts symbolising fecundity. So worn and blackened 
with age that it was impossible to determine whether the 
material was ivory or ivy- wood, 1 it accorded ill with the 
magnificence of its surroundings ; nevertheless it was 
hallowed by antiquity and by the tradition that, like other Cf. Ac. xix 
sacred images, it had fallen from heaven. 35 ' 

Her temple conferred many advantages on Ephesus. The privi- 
One, though of doubtful value, was the privilege of asylum. a e s fi° m . 
The sacrosanct area varied in extent from time to time. It 
had originally been limited to the sacred precincts, but 
Alexander the Great increased it to a radius of two hundred 
yards, 2 and Mithridates still farther to the length of a bow- 
shot, which again was doubled by Mark Antony, so that a 
portion of the city was included. This, however, proved 
mischievous inasmuch as it afforded impunity to criminals, 
and it was reduced by the Emperor Augustus. 3 

A more profitable advantage was the prosperity which The silver- 
accrued to the city from the presence of the temple in her smit 
midst. ' The Great Goddess Artemis ' was the supreme Cf. Ac. 
deity of the Province ; and, since the temple at Ephesus x 
was her chief shrine, multitudes of worshippers trooped 
thither, especially in the month named after her Artemisios, 
when solemn assemblies and festivals were held in her honour. 
These brought wealth to the city. They naturally desired 
to carry home memorials of their visits, and to meet this 
requirement silver models of the temple were manufactured. 4 
It was a lucrative industry, and the silversmiths of Ephesus Cf. Ac. 
were an influential guild. The city owed much to her x 
temple, and it is no wonder that she gloried in it and styled 
herself ' the Sacristan of the Great Goddess Artemis/ en- cf. Ac. 
graving the title on her coins and accounting it her proudest * 
boast. 

The religion of Ephesus had a viler side. Gross darkness Ephesiaa 
covered even ' the Light of Asia.' * afcl 



1 Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 79. 

* Precisely, a stadium, i.e. 6o6f foot. 

* Strabo, 641. 

4 Cf. Herod. II. 63 ; Diod. Sic. I. 97, xx. 1 4. 



228 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

' They say this town is full of cozenage ; 
As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye, 
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind, 
Soul-killing witches that deform the body, 
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, 
And many such-like liberties of sin.' * 

She was the chief home of oriental magic, and ' the Ephesian 
Letters ' were famous all over the world — charms and in- 
cantations credited with sovereign efficacy in averting evil 
and procuring good luck. An anecdote is told of an Ephesian 
wrestler who encountered a Milesian at the Olympic Games 
and proved victorious until it was observed that he wore 
a charm on his ankle ; and when this was removed he was 
worsted in thirty bouts. 2 

A f P Ai los ^ n ^ s arr ^ va ^ a * Ephesus the Apostle found a lodging in 
andria. the house of his friends Aquila and Priscilla, whom he had 
Ac^ xx. 34 ; left there on his way to Jerusalem ; 8 and he resumed, 
ia; ch Ac. doubtless in company with Aquila, his old craft of tent- 
xvui. 3. nuking. They had not been idle in the service of the Gospel 
during the interval, and they had an interesting experience 
to relate. A remarkable personage had appeared at 
Ephesus. This was Apollos, a native of Alexandria, dis- 
tinguished, as became one nurtured in that brilliant city, 
a Wish f or his learning and eloquence. 4 He was a Jew, but he 

dlSCiple Of ilir-rt it-» • t 

John the belonged to the school of John the Baptist. It was only a 
Baptist. £ ew j join's di sc ipies who had recognised Jesus as the 
cf.Mt.ix. Messiah. The majority of them remained outside the 
Church, and continued their master's mission after his 
death, preaching his message and administering his baptism. 
They were distinguished from the Jews by their persuasion 
of the imminence of the Messiah's Advent and their incul- 

1 Shak. Com. of Err. 1. ii. 97-102. 

8 Suidas under 'E0l<ria ypafifiara. Cf. Plut. Sympos. vii. 5 ; Clem. Alex. 
Strom. I. xv. 73, V. viii. 45 ; Erasm. Adag. See a specimen of those magical 
papyri in Deissmann's Light from the Ancient East, pp. 249 ff. 

8 Cf. I Cor. xvi. 19, where (according to DEFG) Paul, writing at Ephesus, 
says : ' Aquila and Prisca with whom I lodge (Trap' oh Kal fri/lfofiai).' Vulg. 
apud quos et hospitor. 

4 X6710S (Ac. xviii. 24) combined the ideas of eloquence and learning. It was 
an epithet of Hermes, the god of eloquence (cf. Luc. Gall. 2). Aristotle styled 
Theophrastus ' the most learned {Xoytwrarop) of his disciples ' (Strabo, 618). 



THE THIRD MISSION 229 

cation of the duty of repentance in preparation for that 
consummation ; and they differed from the Christians in 
that they regarded His Advent as still future, whereas the 
latter believed that He had come and that He was Jesus. 

The sect had established itself at Alexandria, and it His 
possessed in Apollos an ardent and effective advocate. On f n re t he ing 
arriving in Ephesus he preached in the Jewish synagogue synagogue, 
his gospel of the Coming Messiah, adducing in its support 
the testimony of the Prophetic Scriptures. This was the 
method of the Apostles and their successors in their reasonings 
with the Jews. They compiled collections of prophetic 
' testimonies ' like Melito's Selections from the Law and the 
Prophets regarding the Saviour and All Our Faith ; 1 and it 
seems that the disciples of the Baptist had anticipated the 
method. Their collection of ' testimonies ' was appropriately 
entitled The Way of the Lord, referring to their master's jo. i. 23 ; 
definition of his office, and Apollos had mastered it : he had 3 : Mk.T.' 
it by heart. 2 He accurately portrayed the Messiah as the?.: 3; 6 Lk - 
prophets had foretold Him. 3 

Aquila and Priscilla were among his hearers, and they instructed 
interviewed him and showed him wherein his message was an<f quila 
lacking. It was indeed all true : it was the very Gospel Pnsciik. 
which they preached ; but they had recognised a further 
truth which made a momentous difference : the Messiah 
had come, and He was Jesus* They showed how the story 
of Jesus answered, line by line, to the prophetic picture of 
the Messiah. The evidence was clear, and Apollos could not 
resist it. It did not contradict his faith ; it rather confirmed 
and completed it, and he forthwith embraced Christianity. 

1 inXoyat (k re tov vbjxov ical rdv irpo<pr]TQu irepl rod awTrjpos ko.1 rdcrrjs rrjs 
irltTTcws 7]fiCjv (Eus. Hist. Eccl. IV. 26). Cf. Hatch, Ess. in Bibl. Gk., pp. 203 ff. ; 
Burkitt, The Gospel Hist, and its Transmission, pp. 126 ff. ' The testimony of 
the Christ ' (1 Cor. i. 6) is a designation of the Gospel. 

8 KdTTjxovfievos tt)v 'OSbv tov Kvpiov. Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. xvii. 

1 Ac. xviii. 25. For ra irepl tov 'lyaov (tfABDEL, Vulg.), 'the story of 
Jesus' (Cf. Lk. xxiv. 19), one would expect rather rd -rrepi tov Xpurrov, 'the 
things regarding the Messiah ' ; but the phrase is employed from the Christian 
point of view. Though Apollos did not perceive it, the prophetic picture of the 
Messiah was a picture of Jesus (cf. Lk. xxiv. 27). 

4 etvcu tov XpuTTov 'Irjaovv (cf. Ac. xviii. 5), not 'Jesus was the Christ' (A.V., 
R.V.), but ' the Christ was Jesus.' They began with the prophetic picture of the 
Messiah, and then showed how the history of Jesus answered to it. 



230 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Called to It happened that several Corinthians visited Ephesus at 
that juncture ; and, charmed by the gifts of Apollos, they 
invited him to accompany them on their return home. He 
consented, and the little brotherhood of Ephesian Christians 
— Aquila, Priscilla, Epsenetus, and the converts they had 
won — furnished him with a letter of commendation to the 
Church at Corinth. 1 He proved conspicuously successful in 
Achaia alike in edifying the believers and in arguing with the 
Jews ; nevertheless, as presently appeared, his ministry had, 
through no fault of his, an unfortunate issue, fostering a 
spirit which wrought no small mischief in the Corinthian 
Church. 
Paul Ere Paul arrived at Ephesus Apollos had taken his depar- 

and the ture ; but he encountered there a little company of John's 
disciples, disciples, about a dozen in number. Their position was 
different from that of Apollos. There were two sections in 
the Baptist's school ; the majority who still maintained his 
original attitude of expectation, and others who shared his 
subsequent recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus. Apollos 
cf. jo. i. belonged to the former. Of the latter some, like Andrew and 
35-37- John, had cast in their lot with Jesus and had witnessed the 
progress of His revelation ; but others dwelt remote and had 
no knowledge of the later developments ; and this immature 
type — a sort of backwater of religious thought — persisted in 
the Hellenistic world. It had its representatives at Ephesus. 
C f. Ac. These were ' disciples,' believing in Jesus, and this differen- 
tiated them from the Jews; but on the other hand it differen- 
tiated them from the Christians that they were ignorant of the 
Resurrection of the Lord and the Advent of the Holy Spirit. 
They had been baptised with John's baptism of repentance, 
but they were strangers to the baptism of the Holy Spirit 
and the rich grace which it conveyed. Paul encountered 
this little community, isolated alike from the Synagogue and 

1 According to the amplification of Ac. xviii. 27 in Cod. Bez. (D) : tv $k 7-3 'B<p4<r<f t 
imBri/j.ovi'Tes rives Kopivdioi nal dKovcravres airov TapeKoXow SieXdetv criiv afooTs els 
rrjv Trarpida avrCbv' avyKaravevcraPTOs 5e~ avrov ol 'E^eVtot Hypaif/av rots ev KopivOip 
fiadriTals 6'7rws aTrodei-iovTai top &vdpa' 5s eiri^fi-qaas els tt)v 'Axo-lo-v Tro\{> (rwefidXero 
rals eKKkriaiais, 'Now certain Corinthian visitors in Ephesus heard him and 
besought him to cross over with them to their country ; and on his consenting the 
Ephesians wrote to the disciples at Corinth that they might welcome the man ; 
and he on visiting Achaia greatly helped the Churches.' 



xix. 1, 2. 



THE THIRD MISSION 231 

the Church ; and he acquainted them with the later develop- 
ment of the Christian revelation. They welcomed it, and 
entered into the full gladness of the Faith. 

The Apostle began his ministry at Ephesus after his His 
accustomed method. He addressed his first appeal to the mniistry? 
Jews, preaching and reasoning in the synagogue amid ever 
increasing hostility until after three months he was forced 
to desist. There is little reference in the Book of Acts to 
the persecutions which he suffered at this crisis or indeed 
throughout his sojourn in the city ; but how fierce these 
were appears from incidental allusions in his correspondence. 
His life was in daily peril from the fury of that ' wild beast/ Cf. 1 Cor. 
the mob ; and it would seem that he was haled before the corfl.' 8, 
magistrates and sentenced to scourging and imprisonment. xi - 2 3- 
He quitted the synagogue with the disciples whom he had 
won ; and, hiring the lecture-hall of a rhetorician named 
Tyrannos, discoursed there daily betwixt n a.m. and 4 p.m. 1 
These were the only possible hours. The rhetorician lectured 
in the morning, 2 and it was only when his class was over that 
his hall was available. Moreover the Apostle had to earn 
his daily bread, and since the working-day began at sunrise 
and ended an hour before the sultry noon-tide, it was only 
in the afternoon that he was free to preach and the populace 
to hear. 

Such was the beginning of his ministry at Ephesus ; and a The 
stirring and fruitful ministry it proved, lasting for two years ^ n t a of asS 
and pervading the entire Province of Asia. It was the p°P ulai ; 

r ° supersti- 

general populace of the city that he addressed after his tion. 
rupture with the synagogue, and its character presented at 
once peculiar opportunities and peculiar difficulties. Since 
Ephesus was the home of Eastern magic, it was steeped in 
superstition. It was infested with charlatans who professed 
to avert ill luck and dispel diseases by their charms and in- 
cantations. The theory in those days was that all dis- 
tempers were due to demonic possession, and the cure lay 
in the exorcism of the evil spirit. 3 The gift of healing was 

1 In Ac. xix. 9 Cod. Bez. (D) has and #/>as tt^uttt^s £ws SeKdrrjs. 
* Aug. Conf. VI. 11 : ' Dubitamus pulsare quo aperiantur csetera? Antemeri- 
dianis horis discipuli occupant ; cseteris quid facimus ? cur non id agimus ? ' 
3 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. 105 ff. 



232 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

one of the miraculous endowments of the Apostolic Church, 1 
and Paul's exercise of it at Ephesus at once promoted and 
embarrassed his ministry. It won him indeed a hearing 
and demonstrated that God was with him ; but at the same 
time it identified him in the eyes of the populace with the 
heathen adepts and excited the jealousy of the latter. 
The The enthusiasm which his miracles aroused was boundless, 

magical a an d it was exhibited in a pathetic fashion. He was regarded 
personage. as a ma gical personage. There was a miraculous efficacy 
in the touch of his hand and even in contact with his belong- 
ings ; and he could not lay aside his napkin or the apron 
which he wore at his work without its being filched and 
carried to sick-rooms. It was indeed gross superstition, but 
it was natural in those heathen folk and there was faith 
behind it. Faith never misses its reward ; and the blind 
faith of those Ephesians was honoured like that of the poor 
Mt. ix. 20. woman at Capernaum who was persuaded that, if only she 
might touch the Master's clothes, she would be healed of her 
hemorrhage. There was healing in the Apostle's napkin 
even as in the tassel of the Lord's robe. 
Discomn- Nor did the superstition go uncorrected. The difference 
exorcists! between Paul and the heathen adepts was attested by at 
least one notorious incident. Recognising the potency of 
the name of Jesus on his lips, they introduced it as an 
onomasticon sacrum into their incantations. It chanced that 
two itinerant exorcists visited the city. They were brothers, 
cf. Ac. and, like so many practitioners of black art in those days, they 
Mt! xii. 27. were Jews, 2 sons of a priest named Sceva. 8 There was an 
unhappy creature in the city, evidently a madman, subject 

1 Cf. pp. 35 f . 

* The Jewish Essenes seem to have practised exorcism (cf. Lightfoot, Coloss., 
p. 89). 

8 Luke tells the story just as he had heard it, and after the manner of popular 
tales it is somewhat confused. As it stands (Ac. xix. 13-16), it presents two 
difficulties. (1) It begins by speaking of seven exorcists (ver. 14), and presently 
of only two (vers. 16), the former number being perhaps a confusion with the 
demoniac's 'sevenfold' possession (cf. The Days of His Fleshy p. 207). (2) Sceva 
is styled a High Priest. Both are removed in the revised text of Cod. Bez. (D) : 
* among whom also the sons of one Sceva, a priest, wished to do the same : they 
had a custom of exorcising such persons ; and they came in to the demoniac and 
began to invoke the Name, saying, "We charge you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches, 
to come forth.'" 



THE THIRD MISSION 233 

to fits of violence. Insanity was accounted a phase, indeed 
the worst phase, of demonic possession ; and the two 
•xorcists were summoned to deal with the case. If the 
man was a Jew, as he appears to have been, it was natural Cf. Ac. 

xix 17 

that his friends should resort to the Jewish practitioners. 
Aware of the difficulty of their task, the latter employed 
the novel incantation which had of late proved so efficacious. 
Their adjuration irritated the patient. He had heard in his 
normal condition of Paul and his preaching of Jesus, and the 
familiar names excited his disordered mind. He broke into 
a frenzy. ' Jesus,' he cried, ' I recognise, and Paul I know ; 
but you — who are you ? ' and he sprang upon them like a 
wild beast. They were overpowered by his insane fury. 
Ere he was mastered their clothes were torn to shreds, and 
they escaped from the house severely mauled. 

The incident had important consequences. It had Salutary 
happened in a Jewish house, and thus it touched the Jewish r 
community no less than the Gentile populace. The whole 
city was impressed, and the issue proves how justly the 
situation was appreciated. The inference was not that the 
magicians had been worsted by the Apostle in their own 
art but that magic was an unholy thing. The Ephesian 
Letters were discredited and contemned ; and the Christians 
who had clung to the superstition confessed their error and 
abjured it, and such of them as possessed magical papyri 
made a public bonfire of them. It was like the Florentine 
Holocaust of Vanities in the Piazza della Signoria in the days 
of Savonarola, and it involved no trifling sacrifice. The 
magicians sold their charms dear, and the value of the 
parchments which were cast into the flames was estimated 
at nigh £2000. * 

It is an evidence of the hold which the Gospel had taken Spread or 
of the city, and the conquest of Ephesus proved a far-reaching |hr<Sgh Pe 
triumph. She was the metropolis of Asia, and tidings of ° ut *« 

■ ... . , - , Province 

her gracious visitation quickly spread throughout the cf. Ac. 

Province. Paul remained within her gates, but his message J 1 ^ '^ : 

travelled where his voice had never been heard, and churches 19- 

grew up which had never seen his face, not alone that little cf. col. u. 

1. 

1 50,000 drachma. A drachma was worth some 8id. Cf. The Days of His 
Flesh, p. 310. 



234 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

group in the Lycus valley — at Colossae, Laodiceia, and 

Hierapolis — which he had occasion to counsel by letter 

some seven years later when he was a prisoner at Rome, 

Rev. ii. 8- but those at Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardes, and 

m " I3 ' Philadelphia which St. John addresses in the Book of 

Revelation, and those at Magnesia, Tralles, and Miletus 

which St. Ignatius afterwards addressed. His companions, 

especially Timothy and Titus, would be active in this 

cf. Ac. missionary enterprise, and Ephesian converts like Erastus 

would bear their part ; but the work was doubtless done 

chiefly by representatives of the various cities, like Epaphras 

cf.Phm. and Philemon of Colossae and Nympha of Laodiceia, who 

col lv. 15. visited Ephesus, and there heard the Gospel from his lips 

and carried it home. 

1 Cor. vi. 
12-20; 2 
Cor. vi. 14- 

r l * J * TTI 

Cor. l-vi. i-11 

11 ; Ac. 

xix. 2i, 22; 

J^S.' TROUBLE AT CORINTH 

ii. i, xiii. 2; 
x-xiii. 10. 

Evil Thus prosperous was the Ephesian ministry, yet amid its 

Cormrhkn manifold engrossments the Apostle was not neglectful of the 
church, interests of the Gospel elsewhere, nor unmindful of the 
churches which he had already established. That of Corinth 
engaged his special solicitude. It was an important com- 
munity, and soon after his arrival at Ephesus he had 
cf. 2 cor. despatched Titus and the colleague whom the Antiochene 
xn. 18. Church had associated with him, 1 to acquaint the Corinthians 
with his scheme for the relief of the poor at Jerusalem and 
cf. 2 Cor. enlist their sympathy and support. They had at the moment 
ix.V ' 12 ' espoused it with enthusiastic alacrity, and the two deputies 
had returned to Ephesus with a pleasing report ; but in the 
autumn of the year 54 2 the Apostle was troubled by the 
arrival of painful intelligence. 
Asceticism That licentious city, where the chief shrine was the 
Sn?sm ber " Temple of Aphrodite and immorality was not a vice but a 
cult, was a perilous abode for the new faith. It was difficult 

1 Cf. p. 223. * Cf. Append. I. 



THE THIRD MISSION 235 

for the Corinthian converts to break with their past and 
dissociate themselves from their environment ; and the 
inevitable issue was the emergence of two opposite tendencies, 
two antagonistic attitudes. One was asceticism ; and this 
was the natural resort of resolute souls touched by the 
ethical appeal of the Gospel. They accounted the flesh 
essentially evil, and insisted on its mortification. They 
practised abstinence in eating and drinking, and not merely cf. 1 Cor. 
censured illicit intercourse between the sexes but condemned vm ' lx * 
the institution of marriage and enjoined celibacy. The cf. 1 Cor. 
other tendency was more congenial to the natural mind, vu " 
and it was the more dangerous since it was disguised by an 
affectation of superior spirituality. It agreed that the flesh 
was evil but accounted it as evanescent. 1 The immortal 
spirit was the arena of religion, and the mortal flesh had no 
religious value. Hence it mattered nothing what a man did 
with his body. He might indulge it as he would without 
damage to his spiritual life. The maxim was : ' Everything i Cor. vi. 
is allowable for me. Foods for the belly, and the belly for l 
foods : God will do away with both it and them.' 

It was rank libertinism ; and it was boldly practised by a a case of 
section of the Church at Corinth. The scandal came to a mcest 
head in a flagrant and shocking case. A member of the ci 1 Cor. 
Church had formed an incestuous alliance with his step- v 
mother 2 — an iniquity not only contrary to the Scriptures cf. Lev. 
but abhorrent even to pagan sentiment. The offender was xvm ' 7 ' 8 
a Gentile convert, and the partner of his sin was evidently 
still a heathen, since she is not included in the Apostle's 
censure. This, in the case of a legitimate union, would have cf. 2 Cor. 
been accounted an indiscretion, but it was merely a trivial corlVii. 1 
aggravation of so monstrous a transgression. I0 " 16 - 

Tidings of the scandal reached the Apostle's ears. It a lost 
would be hotly resented by the ascetic section of the Corin- admoni- 
thian Church, and it is likely that, when their remonstrances tion - 
proved unavailing, they reported the situation to him and 
solicited his intervention. In any case he heard of it, and cf. 1 Cor. 

v. 9-11. 

1 Cf. Iren. I. xx. 2 ; Epiphan. Har. xxvu. 5 : <pa<xi yhp efrcu ttjc <pv\a.KT)v to 

8 Theodrt. infers from 2 Cor. vii. 12 that the father was dead : Kal reOvvbt 

■fjSiKr,TO, rijs eipijt v(3pi(r9d<nis. 



236 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

he straightway wrote a letter of admonition. Like many 
others which he wrote in the course of his ministry, this letter 
has no place in his extant correspondence ; nor indeed is its 
disappearance surprising, since a document which was a 
memorial of her shame, would hardly be preserved in the 
archives of the Corinthian Church, or, if it were, it would be 
jealously kept secret ; all the more that its publication was 
unnecessary inasmuch as it dealt with a purely local concern. 
It is, however, from the Apostle's testimony indubitable that 
the letter was actually written, and his allusions indicate 
Surviving its trend ; and, moreover, by a happy chance in nowise 
ragments. uncommon a { i eas t two considerable fragments of it have 
been incorporated in his extant correspondence with the 
Corinthian Church. 1 > 

Fragments of the First Letter to Corinth 

(i Cor. vi. 12-20) 

12 ' Everything is allowable for me ' : yes, but it is not every- 
thing that is profitable. * Everything is allowable for me ' : 

13 yes, but I will not allow anything to master me. ' Foods for 
the belly, and the belly for foods : God will do away with both 
it and them.' The body, however, is not for fornication, but 

14 for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God both raised 

15 the Lord and will raise us up through His power. Do you not 
know that your bodies are members of Christ ? Shall I, then, 
take the members of Christ and make them a harlot's members ? 

16 Away with the idea ! Or do you not know that, when one is 
Gen. ii. 24. united with a harlot, they are one body ? For ' the two,' it is 

17 said, ' shall become one flesh.' But, when one is united to the 
Lord, they are one spirit. 

18 Flee from fornication. Every other sin which man commits 
is outside of the body ; but the fornicator sins against his own 

19 body. Do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the 
Holy Spirit who is within you and whom you have from God ? 

20 And you are not your own ; for you were bought at a price. 
Glorify God, then, in your body. . . . 

(2 Cor. vi. 14-vii. 1) 

Dt xxii. 14 Do not yoke yourselves incongruously with strangers to 
the Faith. 2 For what participation have righteousness and 

1 Cf. Append. I. 

* tTepofryovPTet, a LXX word (cf. Lev. xix. 19) ; only here in N. T. It 
denotes not merely intermarriage but all manner of intimacy with heathen. 



10. 



THE THIRD MISSION 237 

lawlessness ? Or what fellowship has light with darkntss ? 

1 1 And what concord is there between Christ and Beliar ? l Or 

what portion has one who holds the Faith with a stranger to 

16 it ? And what agreement has a sanctuary of God with 
idols ? For we are a sanctuary of the Living God, even as 
God has said : 

' I will dwell in them and walk in them, Ez. xxxvii. 

And I will be their God and they shall be My people. a 7 ;. Lcv - 

17 Wherefore come forth from the midst of them j cr . 'n, 4 ' 5 . 
And be separated, saith the Lord, is. in. u. 
And touch no unclean thing ; 

And I will receive you ; Ez. xx. 41. 

18 And I will be to you as a father, aSam. vii. 
And ye shall be to Me as sons and daughters, JJ.j **•. 

Saith the Lord Almighty.' Hos. i.'io; 

vii. 1 Since, then, we have promises like these, beloved, let us Am - iv - 

cleanse ourselves from all pollution a of flesh and spirit, * 3 
perfecting holiness in God's fear. 



From these fragments and the Apostle's references to it contents 
the drift of the lost letter may be gathered. First it dealt ° e f t fe* : 
with the particular case, and in virtue of his apostolic (1) Dis- 
authority Paul directed that the Church should convene and mandate. 
pronounce upon the offender a solemn sentence of excom- cf. 1 Cor. 
munication, not indeed excluding him absolutely and irre- v * 3 " 5 ' 
vocably but debarring him meanwhile from Christian fellow- 
ship and intercourse until he should repent and crave 
restitution. The Church's discipline was always remedial, Cf. Gai. vi. 
and the ultimate end of that stern sentence was the sinner's I# 
restoration. 

From the particular case he passed to the general question, (a) Ethical 
and addressed to the Corinthians a warning against the 5on.° m 
prevalent sin of fornication. Their heathen environment cf. 1 Cor. 
exposed them to constant danger. In the midst of abounding v " 9 ' 13 ' 



1 BeXiap (Be\la\), Heb. ?y^3 ' worthlessness. ' Cf. Jud. xix. 22: 'sons 

of belial,' i.e., 'worthless fellows.' Later (frequently in Test, of XII Patr.) a 
proper name, a title of Satan. 

8 The verb pokvuciv occurs thrice in N. T. (i Cor. viii. 7 ; Rev. iii. 4, xiv. 4) ; 
the noun fjio\v<r/j.6> only here. The term is appropriate to the Apostle's argument, 
since it denoted the pollution of fornication, either literal fornication (Rev. xiv. 4) 
or the whoredom of idolatry, *he pollution of heathen intercourse (cf. I Esdr. viii. 
83 ; 1 Cor. viii. 7). 



238 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

and unabashed impurity it was difficult for them to escape 
its foul contagion, and they ran an especial risk when, like 
that miserable offender, they allied themselves in marriage, 
even legitimate marriage, with their heathen neighbours. 
They had need of peculiar vigilance ; and unhappily they 
had been lulled to security by a false philosophy. He quotes 
two pleas which were much on their lips in extenuation of 
their moral delinquencies. One was the antinomian maxim : 
1 Everything is allowable,' meaning that, since the spirit 
was the domain of religion, the flesh mattered nothing to 
the spiritual man : it belonged to the category of ' things 
indifferent.' 1 Yes, is his answer, but nothing is allowable 
for the spiritual man which injures his spiritual life and 
brings his soul into bondage. The other maxim was : ' Foods 
for the belly, and the belly for foods : God will do away 
with both it and them.' That is, the body is mortal ; it is 
only the soul's temporary prison-house, and when it decays, 
the soul will soar unfettered. Nay, is his answer, the body 
is no perishing thing. It is destined to share the soul's im- 
mortality. God will not do away with it. He will raise it 
to incorruption and glory ; and meanwhile it is the Hofy 
Spirit's Sanctuary. 
Further He would anxiously expect a reply to his letter, but none 
Siings. arrived. Early, however, in the year 55 tidings reached him 
iCor.i. n. which aggravated his distress. His informants were 'the 
people of Chloe,' but who these may have been is somewhat 
of a puzzle. Chloe, which signifies in Greek ' a tender 
shoot,' occurs as a woman's name ; 2 and thus Chloe may 
have been a Christian lady engaged, like Lydia of Philippi, 

1 Cf . the attitude not only of the Nicolaitans (cf. p. 526) but of ' the Spirituals ' 
at the time of the Reformation. One of the latter was Johann Agricola, Magister 
Islehius, b. at Eisleben in 1 492, died at Berlin in 1 566. He studied under Luther, 
and caused the latter much vexation by his doctrinal excesses in after days. He 
taught, in common with the rest of his sect, that ' whatever a man's life may be 
and however impure, still he is justified if only he believes the promises of the 
Gospel ' (cf. Jortin, Erasm. I. p. 356). If only he has faith, he may do what he 
will. Good works are legalism. The believer is above the Law. As Agricola 
said, ' all who had anything to do with Moses would go to the Devil, for Moses 
ought to be hanged.' This sect had its adherents in England, where they went 
by the name of ' the Ranters ' and practised open libertinism. Cf. Reliq. Baxter. 
I. i. § 122. 

* Cf. Hor. Od. in. ix. 



THE THIRD MISSION 239 

in some extensive trade, and ' the people of Chloe ' might 
then be her sons or her employees who travelled hither and 
thither on mercantile errands and had brought to Ephesus 
a report of the situation at Corinth. It would still remain 
uncertain which of these cities was her place of abode, though 
from the simplicity of the Apostle's reference it might be 
inferred that she was a Corinthian well known to his readers. 
On the other hand, while names borrowed from natural 
objects were common, they were usually borne by slaves ; 
and there is perhaps probability in an ancient suggestion 
that Chloe is here the name not of a woman but of a place, 
some forgotten town which had received the Gospel. 1 Thus 
' the people of Chloe ' would be Christian traders who 
trafficked with the various cities and had passed from Corinth 
to Ephesus. 

Whoever they may have been, they brought the Apostle Recaici- 
distressing intelligence. The situation at Corinth had gone theCo° 
from bad to worse. His mandate regarding that shameful mth,ans - 
case had been openly flouted. Indeed some went the length Cf. 1 Cor. 
of charging him with cowardice because he had written 
instead of paying them a personal visit and meeting them 
face to face. The offender had never been called to account. 
He still remained in the fellowship of the Church uncon- Cf. j Cor. 
demned and unrebuked, at all events by the majority of the v 
members ; and it was a painful feature of the situation that, 
so far from realising the shame of it, they were swollen with 
spiritual and intellectual pride and were indulging their 
characteristic disposition to strife. 

They were indeed a contentious people. Some forty years Their con 
later St. Clement of Rome had occasion to write them, and dispos- 
he speaks of * the matters in dispute among them, the tlon * 
accursed and unholy sedition, so alien and strange to the 
elect of God, which a few persons in their rashness and self- 
will had kindled to such a pitch of madness that their name, 
once august and renowned and universally beloved, had been 

1 Cf. Ambrstr. on I Cor. i. II, where three current explanations are mentioned : 
'Aliquibus videntur homines esse manentes et fructirkantes in fide Dei (hence 
' the men of tender growth ') : aliquibus videntur locus esse, ut puta si dicatur : 
Ab iis qui sunt Antiochise : aliquibus autem videtur feminam fuisse Deo devotam, 
cum qua multi essent colentes Deum.' 



2 4 o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

greatly reviled/ And he rebukes their ' arrogance and pride 
and folly and anger,' their rebellious contempt of authority, 
their ' strifes and wraths and divisions and cleavages among 
themselves.' 1 
Parties Precisely similar was the situation unfolded to the Apostle. 

Church. The Corinthian Church was an arena of unholy contention, 
and the quarrel was peculiarly painful to him inasmuch as 
he was personally involved. It was the old Judaist contro- 
versy, but it had been vexatiously complicated. Each 
party was agitated by a cross-current. In Galatia it had 
been a clear issue between those who held by his Gospel 
of the equal privileges of Jew and Gentile and the justifica- 
tion of both by faith in Christ, and those who insisted 
on the permanent obligation of the Jewish Law and assailed 
his apostolic authority ; but at Corinth there was a 
The party cleavage on this side and on that. For over a year the 
and the learned and eloquent Apollos had been teaching in the city, 
party of an( j his ministry had created a situation which, being Paul's 

Apollos. J ° 

friend in all loyalty and affection, he had never designed and 
indignantly resented. His brilliance had charmed those of 
his hearers who had been accustomed to the dazzling oratory 
and ingenious dialectic of the Greek sophists ; 2 and they 
contrasted his manner with Paul's, much to the latter's 
disparagement. The contrast was indeed extreme ; for 
the Apostle, though superior in intellect and erudition, had 
a. 2 cor. none of the outward graces of Apollos. His person was 
*' IO ' uncouth and his delivery unimpressive ; and these natural 
disadvantages had been specially apparent during his ministry 
at Corinth. When he came thither from Athens, not only 
was he suffering from a recurrence of his chronic malady 
but, with the humiliating failure of his attempt at philo- 
sophic disquisition in the Court of the Areiopagos fresh in 
his memory, he studiously eschewed the arts of rhetoric 
cf. i Cor. and preached simply and plainly in reliance on the power 
"' I * 5 ' of the Holy Spirit. 3 The Corinthians contrasted him with 
the brilliant Alexandrian ; and though it was the self-same 
Gospel that both preached, each had his admirers who 

1 Clem. Rom. Epist. ad Cor. /, i, xiii, xlvi. 
■ Cf . Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas, pp. 94 ff. 
• Cf. pp. 148 f. 



THE THIRD MISSION 241 

pitted one against the other, ' windily bragging in praise of cf. iv. 6. 
the one to the other's disparagement/ Some said, ' I hold 
by Paul/ others ' I hold by Apollos ' ; and the preference 
developed into unseemly partisanship. It was an un- 
pleasant position for the loyal-hearted Apollos, and it became cf. xvi. 12. 
so intolerable that he presently quitted Corinth and joined 
Paul at Ephesus. 

On the other side there was a corresponding cleavage. Judaist 
The Judaists had their emissaries at Corinth, perhaps the ganda. 
very men who had done the mischief in Galatia, and they 
adapted their vexatious propaganda to the situation. In 
Galatia they had insisted on the necessity of circumcision ; 
but at Corinth the Church contained few Jewish converts 
and an appeal to Jewish prejudice would have fallen un- 
heeded. And so they appealed to the Corinthian instinct 
for contention, and assailed the authority of Paul. Hence 
it is that in his reasonings with the Church he never touches 
on the controversy regarding the Jewish Law. It was a 
question of personal claims and partisan contentions that cf. 2 Cor. 
he had to deal with, and his argument is a personal ^ 3 7 /^\'^' 
apologia, an assertion and vindication of his apostolic I2 - 
authority. 

The Judaists had come to Corinth armed with credentials The party 
from the Church at Jerusalem. Just as Apollos had brought °Jj£ ^ ias 
a commendatory letter from the Christians of Ephesus, so P art .y of 
they had brought one from the Church at Jerusalem. It cf. Ac. 
was endorsed by Peter, and they paraded his pre-eminent * v f hl ^ g£ r 
dignity and represented Paul's exercise of apostolic functions Hi. 1. 
as an illegitimate usurpation. They won adherents, and 
thus a party arose which abjured Paul and asserted the 
supremacy of Peter. Hence the cry ' I hold by Cephas.' 
Furthermore, the criterion of apostleship, they alleged, was cf. 2 Cor. 
personal contact with the Lord in the days of His flesh ; v - l6 - 
and since Paul lacked this he was no Apostle. Hence the 
cry ' I hold by Christ.' Just as there was no essential 
distinction between the admirers of Paul and the admirers 
of Apollos, so neither did these cries denote separate parties. 
There was only this difference — that the profession of 
allegiance to Cephas was inspired by a spirit of pure parti- 
sanship, the preference of one teacher to another ; whereas 
Q 



242 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the claim of adherence to Christ defined the reason of that 
preference. 1 
The Nor were these the only contentions which were devastating 

litigation, the Corinthian Church. Since the Jews were permitted 
under the imperial government to administer their own 
affairs except in capital cases, 2 every synagogue had its 
court of justice. The Jewish Synagogue was the model of 
the primitive Church, and every Christian community had 
its court which adjudicated not merely quoad spiritualia 
but quoad temporalia. This, however, did not content the 
Corinthians. They referred their disputes to the civil 
tribunals, and dishonoured their Christian profession in the 
eyes of their heathen neighbours. That horrible case of 
immorality and the quarrels which it had engendered would 
furnish abundant occasion for litigation ; and it may be 
that the foul scandal had figured in the common courts to 
the Church's unspeakable shame. 

Second Letter to Corinth 
Tj 1 ? On hearing this evil report of his Corinthian converts the 

address ° r 

Apostle immediately addressed himself to the composition 

1 So this difficult passage (i Cor. i. 12) is interpreted by F. C. Baur {Paul, 
1. pp. 261 ff.). Opinion is much divided, and there are two main alternatives. 

1. Four distinct parties are recognised : (1) ol HatiXov, (2) ol 'A-rroXXd}, (3) ol 
K-r](pd, (4) ol Xpio-Tov. The question then is who the last may have been. Storr 
{Einleit. in. 107) took them as the party of James the brother of Christ (cf. I Cor. 
ix. 5), supposing that they claimed superiority to the party of Cephas. Neander, 
again, regarded them as a professedly neutral party, refusing allegiance to any 
human teacher, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, and ' professing to adhere to 
Christ alone, to acknowledge Him only as their teacher, and to receive what He 
announced as truth from Himself without the intervention of any other person ' 
{Plant, of Chr., I. p. 236), really making the Sacred Name a partisan badge. 

2. An ancient interpretation (cf . Poole, Synops. Crit. ), recently revived (cf . Lake, 
Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 127 f.), punctuates after Kt/^S : ' "I am of 
Paul," and " I am of Apollos," and " I am of Cephas." But I am of Christ.' 
There were thus only three parties — ol U.a6\ov, ol 'A7roX\w, and ol Ky^a, and the 
Apostle repudiates them all. 'Be Christ's,' he says, 'and then you have every- 
thing (cf. 1 Cor. iii. 22, 23).' This yields an excellent sense, and it is somewhat 
countenanced by the circumstance that Clem. Rom., referring to the passage 
enumerates only those three parties. Cf. Epist. ad Cor. I, xlvii : TrvevfiartKus 
£fr£crT€i\€v vfuv irepl adrou ts Kai Krjcpa re kou 'A7roA\t6, 5ta rb ko.1 totc irpofjKMcei.s 
b/xas ireiroi7)o-dai. There is, however, a twofold objection : (i) This interpretation 
would require £y& iihroi (or dXX' iy&) HpicTov. The dt clauses are plainly co« 
ordinate. (2) In 2 Cor. x. 7 Paul evidently refers to a separate ' Christ-party/ 

» Cf. p. 45- 



THE THIRD MISSION 243 

of a second letter. 1 He employed as his amanuensis one 
Sosthenes, probably an Ephesian convert ; 2 and he begins 
with the customary address, skilfully interweaving sugges- 
tions of the subsequent argument. He affirms his own 
apostolic vocation ; and he greets his readers as ' the Church 
of God at Corinth ' — Icetum et ingens paradoxon — ' men 
sanctified in Christ Jesus, by calling saints,' tacitly con- 
trasting their shameful actual with their heavenly ideal, 
and rebukes their dissension by reminding them of their 
catholic fellowship. 

i. 1 Paul, by calling an Apostle of Christ Jesus through God's 

2 will, and Sosthenes the brother, to the Church of God which is 
at Corinth, men sanctified in Christ Jesus, by calling saints, 
in fellowship with all who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus 

3 Christ in every place, their Lord and ours. Grace to you and 
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

With all their faults the Corinthians were not lacking in Apprecia- 
distinguished and precious endowments. They were an Corinthian 
intellectual community, delighting in eloquence and wisdom, s ifts - 
' speech ' and ' knowledge ' ; and though it had proved a 
snare to them, this was an excellent quality, and the Apostle, 
in view of the hard things which he must presently say, 
begins with a sentence of warm appreciation and generous 
confidence. 

4 I thank God always regarding you for the grace of God 

5 which is given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you are 
so enriched in Him, in every sort of ' speech ' and every sort of 

6 ( knowledge,' as the testimony of the Christ was confirmed in 

7 you, that you are not lacking in any gift of grace, while you 

8 await the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also 
confirm you to the very end, unchargeable on the Day of our 

9 Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is God, through whom you were 
called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 



And now the Apostle addresses himself to his painful ta.sk The Cor- 
inthian 

1 £8rj\(i)67j yap /not (i. n), 'it has just been shown me,' aor. of immediate past. scanclai> 
Cf. Lk. xv. 24, xxiv. 34 ; Jo. xii. 19, xiii. I, xxi. 10. Chrys. In Ep. I ad Cor. 
Horn. xiii. 3 (where th& preacher rebukes an outburst of applause) : iKporrjo-aTC 
ivTavda: ' You applaud here ? ' a Cf. p. 187, 



244 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

of dealing with the scandal which, as he had learned by 
credible report, was disgracing the Corinthian Church. It 
was a threefold scandal — partisanship, fornication, and 
litigation. 
i. Par- The partisan spirit which was rampant in the Church and 

uian.hip. j^ ren j. -^ j n £ bjtte r factions, first engages his attention, 
since he was personally implicated. He had been doubly 
assailed. One party was pitting him against Apollos. 
These were Gentile converts who had been nurtured in the 
atmosphere of Greek culture. They were intellectuals, and 
they contrasted the rude simplicity of his teaching with the 
eloquence of the brilliant Alexandrian. Another party was 
composed of Jewish converts, and these, inspired by the 
Judaist propagandists, challenged his apostleship and 
exalted the authority of the original Apostles, especially 
Peter ; and it seems that, on the ground that he had never 
known Christ in the flesh, they insisted that he had never 
been ordained and his administration of the Sacrament of 
Baptism was invalid. He meets both with indignant scorn. 
That spirit of partisanship was a denial of Christ's supremacy. 
He was the only Lord, and Paul and Apollos and Peter were 
all alike His poor ministers. For himself he laid no claim 
to authority ; and he was thankful to remember that so 
few of them had received Baptism at his hands. His 
apostolic function was far higher. It was not baptising but 
preaching the Gospel, and preaching it not ' in wisdom of 
speech ' but in all simplicity. 

10 Now I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, that you all speak in accord and that there be no 
cleavages among you, but that you be all knit x together in 

ii mind and judgment. For it has just been shown me regarding 
you, my brothers, by the people of Chloe that there are strifes 

12 among you. This is my meaning — that each of you is saying 
* I hold by Paul ' or ' I hold by Apollos ' or ' I hold by Cephas ' 

13 or ' I hold by Christ.' Has Christ been portioned ? Was Paul 

14 crucified for you, or were you baptised into Paul's name ? I 
am thankful that I baptised none of you except Crispus and 

15 Gaius, lest some one should say that it was into my name that 

16 you were baptised. (And I baptised also the household of 
Stephanas : for the rest I know not whether I baptised any 

1 KaT-qpTiaixivoi, cf. n. on I Th. iii. 10, p. 161. 



THE THIRD MISSION 245 

17 other.) 1 For it was not to baptise that Christ made me an 
apostle ; no, it was to preach the Gospel, not in wisdom of 
speech, lest the Cross of the Christ should be made an empty 
thing. 

The question of his apostleship was comparatively un- His 
important at Corinth, where the Judaists were an insignifi- ^lintel" 
cant party ; and so he reserves it for subsequent discussion, Actuals, 
and meanwhile addresses himself to the contemptuous 
indictment of the dominant intellectuals, giving free play to 
his vein of sarcasm, that keen weapon which he could on 
occasion employ so effectively. At every turn he deals 
them a shrewd thrust : now stigmatising their vaunted 
' wisdom ' as ' folly/ and telling them that what they 
deemed ' folly ' was a divine ' wisdom ' which they were 
incapable of receiving ; now jeering at their colossal self- iv. 8. 
complacency, and crying shame on a pravity which could v. i, 2. 
flaunt its spiritual pretensions in the midst of unblushing 
immorality. Again and again he brands them with the iv. 6, 18, 
stinging epithet of ' windy braggarts ' and plies them with H'^'. v. 6 i . 
the contemptuous interrogation ■ Do you not know ? ' vi - 2 - 3. 9- 

They disdained the unadorned simplicity of his preaching The 
and termed it ' folly ' ; and he pleads guilty to the charge, of God's 
His preaching had not indeed been characterised by the {o]l y- 
wisdom which they desiderated ; but that was no reproach. 
The Gospel was not a philosophy. It was God's message of 
salvation, and it appealed to the poor and lowly. Its very 
simplicity was its glory, and it was stripped of its power when 
it was tricked out in the gaudy dress of human wisdom, like 
that reeden flute in the Rabbinical legend which lay in the 
Temple and yielded music of surpassing sweetness until 
they covered it with gold and studded it with gems, and then 
its music was gone. 

18 For the speech of the Cross is indeed for those who are on 
the way to destruction, ' folly ' ; but for us who are on the way 

19 to salvation, it is God's power. For it is written : 

1 A marginal note added by the Apostle on reading over the letter after dictating 
it to his amanuensis (cf. Milligan, N. T. Documents, p. 14). It is an explanation, 
not a correction : Stephanas, tnough a Corinthian, had been baptised at Athens. 
Cf. p. 148. 



246 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

is. xxix. ' I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, 

x *- And the shrewdness of the shrewd will I set aside. ' 

is. xix. is ; 20 ' Where is the wise man ? ' ' Where is the scribe ? ' Where is 

xxxii.i. l8, the questioner of this age ? * Has not God ' turned to folly 

21 the wisdom ' of the world ? For, since in the wisdom of God 
the world did not through its wisdom recognise God, it was 
God's good pleasure through the folly of the message we pro- 

22 claim to save those who have faith ; since Jews ask signs and 

23 Greeks seek wisdom, but we proclaim a crucified Christ, 2 

24 to Jews a stumbling-block and to Gentiles folly, but to the 
called on their part, both Jews and Greeks, Christ God's power 

25 and God's wisdom ; forasmuch as God's ' foolish ' is wiser than 
men and God's ' weak ' stronger than men. 

The This truth is written on every page of experience and 

of God's history. God's way in grace is His way in providence. His 
weakness, jnjghty works are ever wrought by feeble instruments. 
' When Philip the Good, in the full blaze of his power, and 
flushed with the triumphs of territorial aggrandisement, 
was instituting at Bruges the order of the Golden Fleece, 
" to the glory of God, of the blessed Virgin, and of the holy 
Andrew, patron saint of the Burgundian family," and 
enrolling the names of the kings and princes who were to be 
honoured with its symbols, at that very moment an obscure 
citizen of Harlem, one Lorenz Coster, or Lawrence the 
Sexton, succeeded in printing a little grammar, by means of 
moveable types. His invention sent no thrill of admiration 
throughout Christendom, and yet, what was the good 
Philip of Burgundy, with his Knights of the Golden Fleece, 
and all their effulgent trumpery, in the eye of humanity and 
civilisation, compared with the poor sexton and his wooden 
types ? ' 3 

26 For look at your calling, brothers : not many wise men 
after the flesh, not many powerful, not many high-born. 

27 No, it is the foolish things of the world that God chose to 

1 <ro(p6s, the Greek philosopher ; ypafifxaretis, the Jewish Rabbi ; irw^njnjf 
rod aiuvos tovtov, the sceptic lacking heavenly illumination — a general term but 
specially appropriate to the unbelieving Jews who are frequently said avv^Tetv 
(cf. Mk. i. 27, viii. n, ix. 14, 16 ; Ac. vi. 9, xxviii. 29). The verb is used also 
of the disciples 'questioning' about the Betrayal (Lk. xxii. 23) and the 
Resurrection (Mk. ix. 10 ; Lk. xxiv. 15). 

I Xpto-rbv icTTavpunhov, cf. n. on Gal. iii. 1, p. 203. 

' Motley, Dutch Republic, Hist. Introd. vii. 



THE THIRD MISSION 247 

put the wise men to shame ; and it is the weak things of 
the world that God chose to put the strong things to shame ; 

28 and it is the low-born things of the world and the things 
which are naught accounted that God chose, the things 

29 which have no being to invalidate those which have, that 

30 no flesh may boast before God. And from Him it is that 
you have your being in Christ Jesus, who was made wisdom 
to us by God's appointment, righteousness and sanctifica- 

31 tion and redemption, that it may be as the Scripture says : 

' Let him that boasts boast in the Lord.' Jer. ix. 33, 

24. 

It was indeed no wonder that the Corinthians should have Reason for 
remarked the simplicity of Paul's preaching during his fijjj?^ 
ministry among them ; for it was specially conspicuous on Paul's 
that occasion. He had come straight from Athens, humbled at Corinth. 
by the failure of his attempt at philosophical disquisition 
in the Court of the Areiopagos. 1 He had determined that 
never again would he repeat the disastrous experiment, and 
in his teaching at Corinth he had eschewed the arts of oratory. 

ii. 1 And as for me, when I came to you, brothers, it was not with 
lofty speech or wisdom that I came, announcing to you the 

2 testimony of God. 2 For my determination was to know 
nothing among you except Jesus as Christ and that a crucified 

3 Christ. And it was in weakness and fear and much trembling 

4 that I was brought among you ; and my speech and my mes- 
sage were not arrayed in persuasive words of wisdom but 

5 in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith 
might be arrayed not in men's wisdom but in God's power. 

And this was his constant method ; yet in his unadorned The 
Gospel there was a high wisdom beyond the range of wjldom 
childish intellects. It was the revelation of God's agelong ° f the , 

• 00 Gospel. 

purpose ot grace ; and it had ushered in a new era and 
antiquated the pretentious philosophies of the past. It was 
hidden from the merely intellectual man, but it was recog- 
nised by the spiritual ; for it was a revelation of the Spirit, 
and only by the teaching of the Spirit could it be compre- 
hended, only by the language which the Spirit inspired could 

1 Cf. p. 148. 

2 N C BDEFGLP rb jiaprvpiov rod Qeov. The Gospel is either rb napripiov rou 
XpiffTov (cf. i. 6), 'the testimony which the Apostles bore to Christ' (cf. Jo. xv. 
27; Lk. xxiv. 48; Ac. i. 8, 22, iii. 15, v. 32, x. 39, 41), or to ixaprvpiov rod 
Qeov, 'the testimony which God bore in Christ' (cf. 1 Jo. v. 9- n). tf*AC rk 
jj.vo~TripLov rod OeoO, ' the mystery of God ' (cf. ver. 7). 



XIV. IO. 



248 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

it be expressed. ' To evil persons the whole system of this 
wisdom is insipid and flat, dull as the foot of a rock, and 
unlearned as the elements of our mother tongue ; but so are 
mathematics to a Scythian boor, and music to a camel/ x 

6 Yet it is wisdom that we talk in the judgment of the mature 2 
— a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of this age's decadent 

7 leaders. No, it is God's wisdom in a mystery 3 that we talk — 
the hidden wisdom which God foreordained ere the ages for 

8 our glory. And none of this age's leaders has recognised it ; 
for if they had recognised it, they would not have crucified 

9 the Lord of Glory. But, as it is written : 

is. lxiv. 4 * Things which eye never saw and ear never heard, 

xv. 1 , 17 ^ n( j ^e heart of man never dreamed, 4 

All the things which God prepared for those who love Him.' 

10 To us, however, God revealed it through the Spirit ; for the 

Cf. Prov. 11 Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who 

is there among men that knows the things of the man except 

the man's spirit which is within him ? Thus also the things 

12 of God none has recognised except God's Spirit. And we — 
it is not the spirit of the world that we have received, but the 
Spirit which issues from God, that we may know the things 

13 which have been graciously bestowed on us by God. And 
these things we also talk, not in words taught by human 
wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, combining 

14 spiritual things with spiritual. 5 But a merely intellectual 

1 Jeremy Taylor, The Great Exemplar, Pref. 43. 

8 reXeios denoted what had attained its end (tAos) and so, generally 'perfect.' 
More particularly: (1) a full-grown man, one who has attained mature age and 
the perfection of his powers (cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 10, II, xiv. 20; Heb. v. 14). (2) In 
connection with the Greek Mysteries, ' initiated ' into the secret lore, the perfect 
knowledge. Of this use there is no clear instance in N. T. Here (cf. iii. 1, 2) 
'full-grown,' 'mature,' said sarcastically of the boastful intellectuals. Cf. tG>v 
Karapyov/xhuv, 'who are being invalidated' (cf. 2 Cor. iii. 7, 11): a new era 
had dawned and the vaunted ' wisdom of this age ' was out of date. 

8 Cf. p. 320. 

* iirl tt)v KapUav avOpunov ovk avtfir) (cf. Ac. vii. 23), a LXX phrase (cf. 
Jer. iii. 16, xliv. 21, li. 50). 

5 As the wisdom of men is fitly expressed by words of human wisdom, so the 
wisdom of God must be matched with words taught by His Spirit. cvvKpiveiv, 
* combine,' the correlative of diaKpLveiv, 'separate.' Cf. Plat. Phced. 72 c : kclu d 
i-vytcptvoiTO fxkv 7rdi/ra SiaKpLvoiro 8£ fx-f], raxv &v rb rod 'Avat-ay6pov yeyovbs etrj' 
biiov iravTa xpVf J - ara - The word meant also (1) 'compare' (cf. 2 Cor. x. 12) and 
(2) 'interpret,' especially a dream (cf. Gen. xl. 8, xli. 12; Dan. v. 12); and 
hence two other interpretations of the text : (1) 'comparing spiritual things with 
spiritual,' spiritualibus spiritualia comparantcs (Vulg.), i.e., illustrating spiritual 
truths by O. T. types (Chrys.) ; (2) 'interpreting spiritual things by spiritual' or 
'interpreting spiritual things to spiritual men' (Ambrstr., Theophyl.). 



THE THIRD MISSION 249 

man ' does not receive the things of God's Spirit, for they are 
folly to him ;and he cannot recognise them, because they are 

15 spiritually examined. 2 But the spiritual man examines evcry- 

16 thing, while he is himself examined by none. For ' who is so i s . x i. r3 , 
acquainted v/ith the Lord's mind that he may instruct Him ? ' 

But we have Christ's mind. 

And now he delivers a sharp home-thrust. His critics An un- 
sneered at the simplicity of his teaching during his ministry J^Sention, 
at Corinth ; and he retorts that it was nothing else than an 
accommodation to their incapacity. He had found them so 
dull. It was impossible for him to address them as spiritual 
men. They were not even ' carnal ' ; they were simply 
' carneous ' — creatures of flesh. They were very babes in 
Christ, and babes' food was all that they could receive. 
And it was all that they could even yet receive. For they 
had made no progress toward spirituality. They remained 
carnal, swayed by the passions which dominate human 
hearts where God has no place ; and they proved it by their 
unhallowed contentions. For what else did their pitting of 
one teacher against another mean but that they left God 
out of account ? Paul and Apollos were merely His ministers, 
each doing his appointed task. Paul had planted the good 
seed, and Apollos, his successor, had watered it ; but it was 
God that had made it grow. And His was all the praise. 

iii. 1 And I, brothers, could not talk to you as spiritual men but 
2 only as carneous, as babes in Christ. 3 I fed you with milk, 

1 Corresponding to the trichotomy irvt-dna, 4>vxf}, cCjfia (cf. n. on I Th. v. 23, 
p. 166), there are three classes of men according as one or other of these elements 
predominates : 6 Tvevna.Tt.K6s, 6 \J/vxi-k6s, 6 crw^ari/co? or <rapKiK6s. The ip v xh was 
twofold — $vxh AX070S, 'their irrational soul/ the merely sentient life, and ^v^v 
XoyiKT], 'the reasonable soul,' the intellectual life, the vous. Hence i/'uxi/cis was 
either 'sensuous' or 'intellectual.' Here i/'vxikos fodpuiros is a merely intellectual 
man, possessing only 'the wisdom of this age,' not ' the wisdom of God' revealed 
'through the Spirit.' 

2 Cf. pp. 252 f. 

* The weight of authority supports aapicivois in ver. I and aapKiKol in ver. 3. 
Since the termination -wos (Engl, '-en', cf. 'wooden') denotes the material of 
which a thing is made (cf. Mt. iii. 4 : favr) depixarlvt], Mk. xv. 17 : o.kAv8lvos 
ari(pavos), craptavos is carneus, 'made of flesh' (cf. 2 Cor. iii. 3). On the other 
hand, aapKiKbs is carnalis, denoting carnal tastes and inclinations, rb (pp6yrj/j.a rijs 
aapKos (Rom. viii. 6). The Corinthians were not really 'intellectual' {\pvx<.Ko(.) j 
they were not even ' carnal ' (ffapKiKol) ; they were just ' carneous ' (adpKivoi), 
creatures of flesh, mere ' babes ' with the intellect undeveloped. 



250 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

not with meat ; for it was all you were yet able for. Indeed 

3 even now it is still all you are able for ; for you are still carnal. 
For where there are jealousy and strife among you, are you 
not carnal and comporting yourselves after the fashion of 

4 mere man ? When one says ' I hold by Paul ' and another 

5 ' I hold by Apollos,' are you not mere men ? What, then, is 
Apollos ? and what is Paul ? Ministers through whom you 
were won to faith ; and each ministered as the Lord granted 

6 him. I planted, Apollos watered ; but all the while it was 

7 God that made it grow. 1 And so neither the planter is any- 

8 thing nor the waterer, but only God the growth-giver. The 
planter and the waterer are one, yet each will receive his 

9 proper wage according to his proper toil. For we are God's 
fellow- workers ; you are God's tilth, God's building. 2 

The The Apostle has passed abruptly from the metaphor of 

and\he lon husbandry to that of building, and now he proceeds to 
building, develop the latter. He was employed in the erection of 
God's spiritual Sanctuary, and he had done his part at 
Corinth. He had laid the foundation, and he had left 
Apollos to build up the walls. The foundation was essential, 
and he had laid it firm and clear. It was Jesus Christ, and 
the supreme test of his successors' work was : Were they 
building on that foundation ? The Judaists, in rejecting the 
Gospel of salvation by faith in Christ and substituting the 
old method of legal observance, were building on another 
foundation, and their work was condemned. But it was 
possible for a man to be building on the one and only 
foundation and yet be building in vain, erecting a worthless 
and unenduring structure. Here the question is whether a 
man's work will stand the fiery test of the Final Judgment. 
The Apostle may have been thinking of the burning of the 
city of Corinth by the Roman conqueror 3 or the burning of 
the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, 4 and how in each instance 
the marble and gems had survived the ordeal. And the 
Greek historian 5 tells how in the time of Darius the Athenians 
invaded Asia and, landing at Ephesus, proceeded to Sardes 
and took the city. It was a poor place in those days. Most 

1 Cf. the saying of Ambroise Pare, the father of modern surgery : ' I dressed 
his wounds, but God healed him.' 

* Cf . a similar transition from husbandry to building in Mt. xxi. 33-44. 
» Cf. p. 150. * Cf. p. 226. 

8 Herod, v. 101. 



THE THIRD MISSION 251 

of the houses were constructed of reeds and some of bricks 
with reeden roofs ; and when one of them was set ablaze, the 
conflagration passed from house to house and spread all 
over the city. Perhaps the Apostle had this local history 
before his mind when he spoke of building with ' wood, 
hay, stubble.' It is not enough to build on the one foun- 
dation ; we must see to it how we are building and what 
we are building. There must be no perishable stuff in the cf. Rev. 
fabric of God's Sanctuary but only precious and enduring XX1, l8 ' 21 
materials ; and this was the fatal error of the Corinthian 
intellectuals. They held indeed the doctrine of salvation 
by faith in Christ, which Apollos preached no less than Paul. 
They were building on the one foundation, but they were 
building sorry stuff. It ensured their salvation that they 
were building on Christ, but it would be a bare salvation. 
Their work would perish, and they would be saved like 
' brands plucked out of the fire.' 

10 According to the grace of God which was given me, as a wise 
master-builder I laid the foundation, and another is building 

11 on it. But let each see to it how he is building on it. For 
another foundation can none lay beside that already in 

12 place ; and this is Jesus Christ. And if one is building on 
the foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, 

13 the work of each will become manifest ; for the Day will show 
it, because the Day is being revealed in fire, 1 and the fire is the 

14 thing that will test 'the quality of each man's work. If one's 
work which he built on the foundation shall remain, he will 

15 receive a wage ; if one's work shall be consumed, he will surfer 
the loss of it ; yet he will himself be saved, but only as ' through 

16 fire.' 2 Do you not know that you are God's Sanctuary, and 
17 the Spirit of God dwells in you ? If one is spoiling the Sanctuary 

of God, God will spoil him. For the Sanctuary of God is holy ; 

and so are you. 3 

1 airoKoKi-rcTeTaL, pres., because the Day was conceived as imminent. Cf. 
1 Th.'v. 2. 

8 A proverbial phrase. Cf. Ps. lxvi. 12; Am. iv. 11 ; Zech. iii. 2; Jud. 23. 
Equally alien from the Apostle's thought are (1) Chrys.'s interpretation that, while 
his work will be consumed, the man himself will live on in the torment of eternal 
fire, and (2) the medieval reference to Purgatory (cf. Aquin. Summ. Theol., 
Suppl. xcix. iv. 3). 

3 oiTives, relat. attracted into agreement with subj. of its own clause (cf. Gal. 
iii. 16; 1 Tim. iii. 15). Not 'and this Sanctuary you are,' which would be 
a superfluous repetition of ver. 16, but 'and this [i.e., 'holy') you are.' 



252 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



The folly 
of intellec- 
tual con- 
ceit. 



Job v. 13. 

Ps. xciv. 
11. 



And more than this. The intellectuals were not merely 
preparing disaster for themselves on the Day of Judgment ; 
they were incurring present loss. The conceit of wisdom 
is always folly, and God always puts it to shame. And the 
spirit of partisanship is a narrowing of religion. When 
the Corinthians attached themselves to a particular teacher, 
they enjoyed only so much profit as he could impart. But 
every teacher is merely an interpreter of the Lord, and his 
interpretation is at the best but partial. Hold by Paul, and 
you receive only what Paul can give ; hold by Apollos, and 
you receive only what Apollos can give ; hold by Cephas, 
and you receive only what Cephas can give. But all that 
each has is in Christ ; and if you hold by Him, then you have 
all that His interpreters can supply, and infinitely more. 

18 Let no one deceive himself. If any one fancies he is wise 
among you in this age, let him become foolish that he may 

19 become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly in God's 
judgment ; for it is written : ' He catches the wise in their 

20 craftiness/ x and again : ' The Lord recognises the reasonings 

21 of the wise that they are futile.' And so let no one boast in 

22 men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or 

23 world or life or death : all are yours, and you are Christ's, 
and Christ is God's. 



The illegi- 
timacy of 
human 
judgment. 



Cf. Ac. 
xxv. 26. 



Cf ii. 14, 
J 5- 



Christian teachers are ' stewards of God's mysteries/ and 
of course they are responsible for their discharge of their 
stewardship. But they are responsible to their Heavenly 
Master, and to Him alone ; and not till the Great Day will 
they be called to account. According to the legal procedure 
of those days the accused was subjected to a precognition or 
preliminary examination and committed for trial if ' a true 
bill ' were found against him. 2 And here lay the audacious 
blunder of the Corinthians. They were anticipating the 
Final Assize and usurping the office of the Divine Judge. 
At the best human criticism is a mere precognition, a pre- 
liminary examination ; and, as the Apostle has already 
protested, a mere intellectual's examination of spiritual 
questions is worthless. He recognised no human ' day ' 

1 Paul does follow LXX (6 KaTa\a,u[3dpo)v cocj>ovs kv tt} <ppovi?i<rei) but translates 
directly and more accurately. 

? Cf. Lightfoot, Fresh Revision of N. T., pp. 62 S. 



THE THIRD MISSION 253 

and no human 'judgment.' There was no day but ' the cr. i.8. 
Day of Jesus Christ ' and no judgment but His ; and mean- 
while the only ' examination ' which he acknowledged was 
neither man's criticism nor his own estimate but the Lord's 
approval. 

iv. 1 Let a man reckon us as officers of Christ and stewards of 

2 God's mysteries. On these terms of course it is required in 

3 stewards that one should be found faithful ; but to me it 
matters very little that I should be examined by you or by a 

4 human day. Nay, I do not even examine myself. For I am 
conscious of no fault, 1 yet I am not on this score proved 

5 righteous ; my examiner is the Lord. And so pass no judg- 
ment prematurely, until the Lord comes, who will illumine 
the secrets of darkness and manifest the purposes of our 
hearts ; and then will each get his praise from God. 

It might be that the Corinthians would sneer at this brave The seif- 
speech. If Paul had indeed so little regard for human judg- cerTcy of 
ment, why had he taken such pains to answer their criticisms tnc Cor - 

' J r inthians 

and define the relations between himself and Apollos ? He and the 
answers that in all his references to Apollos and himself he of the 
had the Corinthians in view, and was censuring their vanity A P° stles - 
and seeking to recall them to sane and scriptural views. 
Their boasted excellences were God's gifts, and they were 
reasons for thankfulness rather than for pride. Their 
conceit was boundless. They had, in their own esteem, 
attained the very summit of perfection, and with scathing 
sarcasm he contrasts their self-complacency with the hard 
estate of the Apostles, scorned and persecuted for Christ's 
sake. 

6 Now, brothers, in these references of mine to Apollos and 
myself there is a covert allusion. 2 It is meant for you, that 
you may learn by our example the precept ' Abide by what is 
written,' so that none of you may brag windily in praise of 

1 ovSh i/xavTip <rvvoi8a, nihil mihi consents sum, 'I am aware of nothing,' i.e., 
no guilt. Cf. Plat. Apol. 21 B : £yw yap 5?) otire pAya ottre crpuKpov avpoida ip.avTij) 
<ro<pbs &v. Hor. Efiist. I. i. 61 : 'nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa.' 

2 /xeTaaxv^c-T^^^i ( J ) 'change the <xxv, ua > outward form' (cf. 2 Cor. xi. 13-15 ; 
Phil. iii. 21); so 'disguise' (cf. I Sam. xxviii. 8 Sym. ; 1 Ki. xiv. 2 Theod.). 
(2) (rxv^i figurci) as a grammatical term denoted 'a veiled allusion.' Cf. 
Quintil. IX. 2 ; Mart. Epigr. in. lxviii. 7 ; Suet. Bom. 10 ; Juv. Vit. : ' Venit 
ergo Juvenalis in suspicionem quasi tempora figurate notasset.' Hence 
VLeTa<rxw a - T '<-& LV ) 'have a covert allusion beyond the immediate reference.' 



254 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

7 one to his neighbour's disparagement. For who is it that 
distinguishes any of you ? And what has any of you which he 
did not receive ? And if he did receive it, why is he boasting 
Cf. Rev. 8 as though he had not received it ? Already you are satiated ! 
m. 17. Already you have waxed rich ! You have come to your 

kingdom and left us behind ! Ah, would that you had come 
9 to your kingdom, that we might share it with you ! For, I 
fancy, God has exhibited us, the Apostles, at the last as con- 
demned criminals, 1 because we have been made a spectacle to 

10 the world, both to angels and to men. We are foolish for 
Christ's sake, but you are shrewd in Christ ; we are weak, but 

11 you are strong ; your lot is glory, but ours dishonour. To 
this very hour we are hungry and thirsty, ill clad, buffeted, 

12 homeless ; we toil, working with our own hands ; we meet 

13 reviling with blessing, persecution with patience, calumny with 
entreaty ; we are made as the offscouring of the world, the 
scapegoat of all, 2 to this very day. 

1 A metaphor from the circus. The sated appetite of the spectators was 
stimulated at the close by a piquant entertainment : condemned criminals, 
iTridavaTLoi (cf. Chrys. : ' ws eiri.do.va.TLovs,'' tovt£(ttiv, <bs Karadiicovs), were intro- 
duced to fight unarmed with wild beasts (cf. xv. 32) — the final event of the 
performance {iaxdrovs). These were the bestiarii. Cf. Tert. De Pudic. 14 : 
* Et puto, nos Deus apostolos novissimos elegit velut bestiarios.' 

2 Trepl\[/7)fj.a, literally 'scrapings,' denoted (1), like fcddap/ma and irepiKa.dapp.a, the 
refuse or scum of society, a rascal. Cf. purgamentum. (2) It acquired a nobler 
signification from a custom which obtained at Athens, where, especially in time of 
plague or famine, a criminal, the vilest that could be procured, was thrown into 
the sea to propitiate the wrath of Poseidon. Cf. Phot. Lex. : otirws eireXeyov 
ry /car' iviavrov ep.fiaXXop.ii'ip veaviq. eiri airaWayfi tCjv cvvex(>VTwv kclkuiv. 
* irepiipTjfia 7}p.wv yevov', ijroi a^T-rjpia Kal airoXuTpojcis, Kal otfrws ivefiaXov T'Q 
daXaac-Q waavel r<!p HoaeidQvi Bvaiav aTroKTivvvvTes. Hence ireplxj/iqjxa and 
irept.K6.da.pixa. came to signify a piacular offering. Cf. Tob. v. 18 : apyvpiov . . . 
■jrepixjyrjpLa rod TraidLov 7)/jlQ.v ykvoiro. Prov. xxi. 18 : irepiKa.Qa.pp.ix 8e dixalov &vop.os. 
So in his interpretation of the prophecy of Caiaphas (Jo. xi. 49, 50) Origen 
' makes bold to say ' that our Lord, more than the Apostles, was wavruv Trepr^ua, 
comparing 2 Cor. v. 21 {In Evang. Joan, xxviii. 14). (3) The word was used in 
the general sense of 'a devoted servant,' especially in the epistolary formula 
iyib eip.1 Treplipiina. <rov. Cf. Ignat. Ad Eph. viii : Trepiip-qiia vp,G>v, Kal ayvl^ofxai 
iirep vp.Qiv. Barn. Ep. iv. 9 ; vi. 5. This use is well exemplified in the Paschal 
Epistle of Dionysius the Great (Eus. Hist. Eccl. vii. 22), where, speaking of the 
plague at Alexandria, he describes how the Christians tended the sufferers with 
unselfish devotion, in many instances catching the fatal infection and thus 
' practically fulfilling the common phrase, which always seems a mere formula of 
courtesy, by dying "the devoted servants" of them all {avruv iravTuv ^^epi■>}■rlp.a.). , 
Thus TrdvTwv Trepixj/rjpia denotes 'homines non solum abjectissimi, sed piaculares' 
(Beng.) ; and the Apostle means that the humiliation of himself and his comrades 
was a redemptive ministry (cf. Col. i. 24). Perhaps the nearest equivalent in 
modern speech is ' scapegoat ' ; but the term is untranslatable, and the Vulg. 
simply transliterates it [omnium peripsema). 



THE THIRD MISSION 255 

These were bitter words, and no sooner had they passed An affec 
his lips than the Apostle's heart smote him, and he con- r e°mSn* 
eludes with an affectionate remonstrance. The Corinthians strance - 
were his converts, his spiritual children. He was their 
1 father in Christ,' and thus he stood to them in a relation 
which none of his successors, however faithful and devoted, 
could occupy. There was love in his severity ; his rebukes 
were the admonitions of a father. It grieved him that they 
had so slighted his example ; and — such was then his in- 
tention — he was despatching Timothy, another of his 
spiritual children, to Corinth, not merely to deliver the 
letter but to recall him and his teaching to their remembrance. 
Why did he not rather visit them in person ? It was not, 
as his adversaries alleged, because he durst not confront them. 
He would visit them ere long ; and his hope was that his 
letter and Timothy's appeal would meanwhile restore order 
and make his visit a pleasure and not a pain. 

14 I am not putting you to shame in writing all this ; no, 

15 1 am admonishing you as my beloved children. For, 

though you have ten thousand tutors x in Christ, still you 

have not many fathers ; it was I who begat you in Christ 

16 Jesus through the Gospel. Therefore, I beseech you, follow 

17 my example. It is for this very reason that I am sending 2 

you Timothy. He is my child, beloved and faithful in 

the Lord ; and he will remind you of my ways in Christ 

Jesus — my manner of teaching everywhere in every church. 

18 With the notion that I am not coming to you some of you 

19 have taken to windy bragging. But I shall come to you 
soon, if the Lord will, and I shall discover not what those 

20 windy braggarts are saying but what power they have ; 
for it is not in ' saying ' that the Kingdom of God lies but 

21 in ' power.' Which do you wish ? Is it ' with a rod ' that Cf. 2 Sam. 
I am to come to you, or in love and a spirit of meekness ? Y> u - H > 

lxxxix. 32. 

The Apostle next passes on to the second of the scandals 2 . Fornica 
which were disgracing the Corinthian Church — that shameful tlon " 
case of immorality. It was now a thing of long standing. 
Several months ago it had reached his ears, and he had 
promptly written to them, charging them to deal with the 
offender and dictating the sentence which they should 

1 Cf. pp. 206 f. ? %T€fjL\pa, epistolary aorist. Cf. p. 219. 



256 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

pronounce. But his mandate had been disregarded. The 
scandal continued, and they were unabashed and un- 
iiisistence ashamed. He reiterates his mandate. They might in theii 
cipiine. unspiritual self-complacency think it a little matter ; but 
even a little matter might work much evil. Was it not a 
proverb that ' a little leaven leavens the whole mass ' ? 1 
The Feast of the Passover was approaching, 2 when the Law 
required that the Israelites should purge their houses of 
leaven ; and he bids them celebrate the holy season by 
purging this evil leaven out of their midst. 

v. i There is a consistent report 3 of fornication among you, 
and fornication of a sort which is unknown even among the 

2 Gentiles : some one 4 has his father's wife. And you are swollen 
with windy pride, and did not rather mourn, that the doer of 

3 this work might be removed from your midst. For I, absent 
in the body but present in the spirit, have already passed 
judgment as though present on him who thus wrought this 

4 thing : ' In the name of the Lord Jesus : assembled — you and 

5 my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus : deliver such a 
man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit 

6 may be saved on the Day of the Lord. ' 5 It is nothing honour- 

1 Cf. p. 213. a Cf. Append. I. 

8 8\us, all the reports agreed — a solid consensus. 

* nva, 'a certain one,' well known, though the Apostle refrains from naming 
him. Cf. Col. ii. 8. 

6 Here he quotes the formal resolution which in his first letter he had directed 
the Corinthian Church to adopt. First (ver. 4), the constitution of the judicial 
assembly : (1) its authority — 'in the name of the Lord Jesus' (cf. Mt. xviiL 20; 
Col. hi. 17) ; and (2) the sederunt : (a) the members of the Church (v^-Qv), {b) the 
spirit of the absent Apostle (cf. ver. 3), who communicated his judgment, and 
{c) 'the power of the Lord Jesus' (cf. Lk. v. 17). So Chrys., Calv,, Grot. 
Otherwise: 1. Construe 'with the power of the Lord Jesus' with 'deliver' 
(Beza). 2. 'In the name of the Lord Jesus' with 'deliver,' 'assembled . . . 
Jesus' being parenthetical (Luth., Beng. Mey., Alford). 3, Both 'in the name 
of the Lord Jesus' and 'with the power of our Lord Jesus' with 'deliver' 
(Mosheim). 4. Connect 'in the name of the Lord Jesus' with ver. 3 : 'him who 
thus wrought this thing in the sacred name,' i.e., while professing to be a 
Christian (a view mentioned by Chrys.). Then follows the sentence (ver. 5). 
This has been interpreted in two ways (cf. Aug. Contra Efiist. Parmen. in. 3): 
I. The miraculous infliction of some bodily punishment, perhaps even death — the 
view of Chrys., whose advocacy of it is responsible for its general acceptance. 
He supposes that the offender was to be stricken judicially with ' an evil ulcer or 
other disease,' comparing Job's trial by Satan (Job ii. 7) and the doom incurred by 
certain Corinthians for sacrilegious observance of the Holy Supper (xi. 30-33). 
Cf. Baur, St. Paul, 1. pp. 299 ff. The cases of Ananias and Sapphira (Ac. v. 



THE THIRD MISSION 257 

able, this boast of yours. Do you not know that ' a little 

7 leaven leavens the whole mass ' ? Clear out the stale leaven, 
that you may be a fresh mass, unleavened as indeed you are. 

8 For our Passover was sacrificed, even Christ ; and so let us 
keep the Feast not with stale leaven nor with leaven of malice 
and wickedness but with unleavened bread of sincerity and 
truth. 

In his first letter the Apostle had strenuously enjoined a mis- 
on the Corinthians the avoidance of contaminating inter- standing 
course. * For/ he asks in a surviving fragment of the letter, corrected. 
' what participation have righteousness and lawlessness ? j 4 Cor * v1 " 
Or what fellowship has light with darkness ? ' His counsel 
had been misconstrued, partly, perhaps, in all good faith 
by the ascetic party in their zeal for moral purity, and partly 
also by the libertines in their resentment of moral restraint. 
It had been represented as an injunction to have dealings 
only with the morally irreproachable, and this was denounced 
as an impossible requirement. It would necessitate separa- 
tion from the world and the conversion of the Church into a 
community of recluses. The perversion of his counsel had 
reached the Apostle's ears, and he now corrects it and 

1- 11) and Elymas (xiii. 8-n) are generally adduced. 2. The sentence signifies 
merely exclusion from the fellowship of the Church (ver. II ; cf. Mt. xviii. 17) 
and from participation in her ordinances in order that the offender might recognise 
the heinousness of his sin and be moved to repentance (Ambrstr.). It may seem 
as though a bodily chastisement were implied by ' the destruction of the flesh ' ; 
but in Paul's thought ' the flesh ' denotes not the body merely but the body 
corrupted by sin, the seat of evil passions. The body {crd^a) is a sacred thing 
destined to incorruption at the Resurrection ; and its destruction would not be 
the salvation of the man but his mutilation, as Chrys. recognises ('if the soul is 
saved, beyond all contradiction the body will share its salvation'). It is the 
sinful flesh that is to be destroyed through repentance, that the man himself, soul 
and body, may be saved. ' Deliver to Satan ' is the converse of ' baptise into 
Christ ' (cf. Gal. iii. 27 ; Rom. vi. 3), As one ' baptised into Christ ' is 
'in Christ,' so one 'delivered to Satan' is 'in the Evil One' (cf. 1 Jo. v. 19). 
The sentence was that the offender, who claimed to be 'in Christ,' should be 
relegated to his true position, 'in Satan,' in order that he might realise the misery 
and shame of it. The phrase recurs in I Tim. i. 20. It is not the regular phrase 
for ' excommunicate,' which was airoavvaywyov iroielv (cf. Jo. ix. 22, xii. 42, 
xvi. 2) or acpopl^iv (cf. Lk. vi. 22) ; and apparently the Apostle here employs the 
Greek formula of execration, which runs thus on one of the Magical Papyri in 
British Museum : v€Kv8aifiojv, irapadidufii <rot rbv 5[ewa), 6'7rwj . . .', 'Spirit of the 
Dead, I deliver to thee X, in order that . . .' This formula would be familiar to 
the Corinthians. 
R 



Dt. xxii. 
24. 



J 



3. Litiga- 
tion. 



258 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

explains that he had not referred to the inevitable inter- 
course of human society but to the fellowship of the Church. 

9 I wrote to you in my letter that you should not associate 

10 with fornicators ; not, certainly, the fornicators of this world 
or the greedy and extortioners or idolaters, since you would 

11 then have to quit the world. And now I write 1 to you that 
you should not associate with any one bearing the name of 
' brother ' who is a fornicator or greedy or an idolater or a 
reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner — that with a person 

12 of this sort you should not even eat. For what have I to do 
with judging those outside ? Is it not of those within that 

13 you are judges? Those without God will judge. ' Remove 
the evil man from your own company.' 

And now the Apostle passes to the third scandal. The 
Corinthians were naturally a contentious people ; and that 
deplorable case of immorality had enkindled their animosi- 
ties. They bandied accusations and recriminations, and 
they carried their quarrels before the heathen magistrates. 
It was a pitiful exposure of the Church's shame ; and it is 
no wonder that it should have moved the Apostle to indignant 
protest. First, he points out that it was unnecessary, since 
the Church, like her model, the Jewish Synagogue, had a 
judicature of her own, and if one Christian had a grievance 
against another, it was before the Church's court that he 
should bring it and not before a heathen tribunal. It is 
xfx. 28; Mt * written that ' judgment is given to the saints ' : they will 
judge the world, both men and angels ; and surely, he 
argues with keen irony, they are competent for the adjudica- 
tion of petty grievances — an office which demanded no high 
spirituality and was fitly entrusted to the Church's lesser 
rulers. Indeed, he continues, there should be no litigation 
between Christians. It is always a losing fight, and the 
winner has the worst of it. For the only true victory lies 
in the sufferance of wrong. 



Dan. vii. 



Lk. xxii. 
30 ; Rev. 
Hi. 21, xx. 

4- 



*i, 1 Has any of you the effrontery, when he has an affair with 
his neighbour, to go to law before the unrighteous and not 

2 before the saints ? Or do you not know that the saints will 
judge the world ? And if the world is judged at your bar, 

3 are you unfit for petty tribunals ? Do you not know that 



vvv 8t iypatia. epistolary aorist. Cf, p, 219. 



THE THIRD MISSION 259 

4 we shall judge angels, let alone secular affairs? 1 Rather, 
if you have secular tribunals, place them that are naught 

5 accounted in the Church — place these on the bench. 2 I say 
it to move you to shame. Has it come to this, that there 
is no one among you wise enough to be able to intervene and 

6 decide his brother's case, but brother goes to law with 

7 brother, and that before strangers to the Faith ? To go no 
farther, the fact is that you are absolutely the losers in having 
lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged ? 

8 Why not rather be defrauded ? Nay, it is you that do the 

9 wronging and defrauding, and that to brothers. Or do you 
not know that wrong-doers shall not inherit God's Kingdom ? 
Be not deceived. Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor 

10 adulterers nor sodomites nor thieves nor greedy persons, 
no drunkards, no revilers, no extortioners shall inherit 

ii God's Kingdom. And all this some of you used to be ; 
but you washed yourselves clean, you were sanctified, you 
were accounted righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ and in the Spirit of our God. 3 

At this point the progress of the letter was arrested by a Arrival of 
welcome interruption — the arrival of three delegates from th °an 
Corinth, Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, bearing a dele s ates - 
communication from their Church. It was the long expected cf. xvi. 17 
answer to the Apostle's first letter, and it necessitated an 
extensive alteration of his plans. His intention had been 
that on the completion of the present letter Timothy should Cf iv 
convey it to its destination, and not only reinforce its argu- i 8 - 
ment but refute the allegation that Paul was afraid to visit 
Corinth and face his critics by explaining the true reason 
of his protracted sojourn at Ephesus. And indeed an 
explanation was needed ; for his original intention had been cf 2 Con 
to make but a brief stay in the Asian capital, and proceed »■ *s> l6 - 
thence to Corinth and, save for an excursion to Macedonia, 
remain there until the close of his mission, thus affording 

1 ffiwriKos was used like the mediaeval sceadaris in contrast with reh'gioszis. 
Cf. Chrys. on Rom. xiii. I : ravra StardrreTai Kal iepevcri nal ^ovaxoh, ovyl rots 

/3(WTtKOtS fx6vop. 

8 toi)s ii~ov6epr)/i£i>ovs if ckk\ rjaiq., not Apostles or Prophets or Teachers but such 
as were endowed with the humbler gifts of administrative capacity (cf. xii. 28). 
Otherwise : ' Do you place on the bench those who are set at naught in the 
Church {i.e., heathen magistrates)?' This, however, ignores ixkv odv, immo vero 
(cf. Lk. xi. 28). 

3 Vers. 12-20, a fragment of the first letter. Cf. p. 236. 



26o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

cr i Cor. the Corinthians the privilege of a second ministry in their 
' 9 ' midst. This promise he had been unable to fulfil, for he had 
been detained at Ephesus by the unexpected emergence of 
precious opportunities and imperative claims ; and he 
reckoned that he must remain a full year longer. His 
present intention was to leave Ephesus after Pentecost, 56. 1 
Nor would he even then proceed direct to Corinth. Trouble 
had arisen in the north. It seems that the Judaist propa- 
gandists, in their passage from Galatia to Achaia, had 
travelled through Macedonia and had prosecuted their 
mischievous enterprise en route ; and thus the Macedonian 
churches, so lately convulsed by eschatological excitement, 
were in the throes of another and more bitter controversy. 
And therefore his intention was that on his departure from 
cf. 1 Cor. Ephesus in May, 56, he should betake himself in the first 
vl ' instance to Macedonia, and, after allaying the trouble, 

proceed to Corinth and there perhaps pass the ensuing 
winter. 
Mission of All this it was expedient that the Corinthians should 
toMacJ. understand, in order that their minds might be disabused of 
Cor!nth nd ^ e sus pi c i° n that he had played them false ; and Timothy 
would have explained it on delivering the letter. But now 
the letter was delayed. It must be extended to cover the 
questions raised by the Corinthian communication ; and 
since these were numerous and difficult, it would be some 
time ere it was completed. And since the delegates 
would convey it on their return, Timothy was relieved of 
that office, and he was meanwhile available for another 
and most urgent service. He would still indeed visit Corinth 
as Paul's deputy, but he would travel thither by the over- 
land route and visit the distracted churches of Macedonia 
Ac. xix. by the way. It was a difficult mission, and the Apostle 
ec'r.x'vL associated with him several of his Ephesian company, 
"• I2, particularly Erastus. He calculated that they would reach 
Corinth soon after the delivery of the letter by the three 
delegates, and they would reinforce its argument by their 
personal appeal. 

1 In the year 56 the Day of Pentecost was May 9. Cf. Lewin, Fast. See., 
P- 307. 



THE THIRD MISSION 261 

And now he resumes his interrupted task and proceeds to The Cor- 
discuss the problems which the Corinthian rescript pro- rescript, 
pounded. That document has of course perished, 1 but the 
course of the Apostle's argument discloses its general pur- 
port. It was a statement of the controversy which had 
arisen out of that disgraceful scandal — a Corinthian Christian's 
union with his stepmother. That was the original casus 
belli between the ascetics and the libertines, but the con- 
troversy had travelled beyond it. Fresh issues had emerged, 
and these it had been decided to submit to the Apostle's 
consideration. They concerned sexual rekitions : things 
sacrificed to idols : abuses in public worship : spiritual 
gifts : the resurrection of the body : the collection for the 
poor at Jerusalem. The statement would be drawn up by 
the Elders of the Church, and they deputed three of their 
number to convey it to Ephesus and expound it to the 
Apostle. Probably these were representatives of the con- 
flicting parties. Stephanas, the earliest of his converts in 
Achaia and his tried friend, 2 would represent Paul's 
supporters, while Achaicus and Fortunatus would appear 
on behalf of the ascetics and the libertines. 3 

Disappointing though it was, the Corinthian communica- The 
tion afforded the Apostle no small gratification. It ex- Answer. S 
plained the long delay in replying to his first letter. His Cf - xvl - I7 
disciplinary mandate had not indeed been executed, but it 
had been seriously considered and the rescript invited dis- 
cussion of large and important problems. It was a precious 
opportunity, and he gladly embraced it in the hope of 
effecting a complete and enduring settlement. His gratifica- 
tion appears in the kindlier tone which characterises the 
remainder of his letter. He desists from sarcasm, and 
addresses himself to high and serious argument, and labours 
to resolve the perplexities of his friends. 

1 The canon of the Armenian Church contains two brief and absolutely worth- 
less letters, purporting to be the Corinthian communication and Paul's reply. 
Cf. Fabricius, Cod, Apocr. N. T., pp. 918 sq. ; Giles, Cod. Apocr. N. T., II. 
pp. 509 sq. 

2 Cf. p. 148. 

8 Since tradition, after its wont, makes Achaicus one of the Seventy Apostles, 
it may perhaps be inferred that he was a Jewish Christian and the representative 
of the ascetic party. 



262 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

i. Sexual The rescript submitted a group of problems connected 
relations. ^^ ^ e re i a tj on f £ ne se xes. The first of these was the 

legitimacy question of the legitimacy of marriage, which the ascetics 
rfage! r contemned. If they did not prohibit it outright, they at 
all events counselled celibacy as the more honourable estate. 
The Apostle's decision is that marriage is not merely 
legitimate but, as a rule, expedient. He would rather 
indeed that his own example were followed. He was a 
widower, 1 and he had remained unmarried ; but the grace 
of continence was not granted to all, and his concession 
was absolute. In every case ' marriage is better than the 
fever of desire/ 

vii. i Regarding the doctrine you write about, that ' it is 

2 honourable for a man never to touch a woman ' : Since 
fornication is so frequent, let each man have his own wife 

3 and each woman her proper husband. Let the husband 
pay the wife her due, and the wife pay the husband his. 

4 It is not the wife that has authority over her own body, 
but the husband ; and likewise it is not the husband that 

5 has authority over his own body, but the wife. Never defraud 
one another, unless it be by agreement for a season, that 
you may devote yourselves to prayer 2 and then resume your 
relationship, lest Satan tempt you since you lack self-control. 

6, 7 1 say this by way of concession, not of injunction ; and I 
wish that all men were like myself. But each has his own 
gift of grace from God, one in this way and another in that. 

8 And I say to widowers and widows, 3 it is honourable for 

9 them if they remain like me ; yet if they be lacking in self- 
control, let them marry ; for marriage is better than the 
fever of desire. 4 

(2) Divorce. Then he turns to the question of divorce ; and here there 
is no need for argument. The Lord had delivered His 
verdict, and that was final. Divorce is illegitimate except 
for adultery ; and a divorced woman must remain un- 
married or else be reconciled to her husband. 

1 Cf. p. 31. 

* T. R. 'fasting and prayer.' K*ABCDEFGP om. rij vqareiq. kclL A similar 
ascetic interpolation occurs in Mk. ix. 29. Cf. The Historic Jesus, p. 73. 

8 Cf. p. 31, n. 1. 

* vvpovadai, 'be consumed with the fire of lust' (cf. Rom. i. 27), not 'be 
burned in Gehenna for their sin' (Cypr. Epist. XII ad Pompon, iv). 



THE THIRD MISSION 263 

10 To the married my charge — not mine but the Lord's — is that 

11 a wife should not be divorced from a husband ; but if she be cf. Mt. r. 
divorced, let her remain unmarried, or else let her be reconciled 32. 

to her husband ; and that a husband should not put away his 
wife. 

Here the question presents itself whether unbelief is a ( 3 ) Mixed 
legitimate reason for divorce. Since, according to the marriages 
Scriptures, idolatry is spiritual whoredom, it was maintained 
that a convert whose spouse remained a heathen should seek 
divorce ; and the idea, it appears, had been encouraged by 
the Apostle's warning in his first letter against being 2 cor. vi. 
' incongruously yoked with strangers to the Faith.' I4 - 

On this question there was no express decision of the Lord, 
yet he answers it with absolute confidence. A mixed marriage 
should not be dissolved where there was mutual contentment. 
It was not an unholy union, since, by the law of imputation, 
the believer sanctified the unbeliever ; and, moreover, there 
was always the hope that the believer might win the un- 
believer. Where, however, contentment was lacking, it 
was legitimate to sever the union in the interest of peace. 

12 To the rest I say — I, not the Lord : If any brother has a wife 
who is a stranger to the Faith, and she is well pleased to dwell 

13 with him, let him not put her away ; and a wife — if she has a 
husband who is a stranger to the Faith, and he is well pleased 

14 to dwell with her, let her not put her husband away. For the 
husband who is a stranger to the Faith has been hallowed by 
fellowship with his wife, and the wife who is a stranger to the 
Faith has been hallowed by fellowship with the brother ; else 

15 your children are unclean, but as it is they are holy. If, 
however, the stranger to the Faith seeks divorce, let him have 
it : the brother or the sister is not enslaved in such cases. 

16 It is in peace that God has called you. For how do you know, 
wife, but that you will save your husband ? Or how do you 
know, husband, but that you will save your wife ? 

The grand principle was that c it is in peace that God has Godiycon 
called us.' Christianity destroys nothing ; it transfigures tentruent - 
everything. It takes our lives as it finds them, and enters 
graciously into them, blessing and enriching them. Hence 
it follows that, whatever be a man's condition at his con- 
version, he should maintain it and live the new life amid the 



264 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

old surroundings. For example, a Jew should not undo his 
circumcision ; nor need a slave fret that he must remain a 
slave. Slavery was indeed a grievous condition, and if an 
opportunity of emancipation offered, it should be welcomed. 
But the rule was that ' where each was called, there he should 
remain in God's company.' A believer, though he was a 
slave, was ' the Lord's freedman ' ; and though he was free, 
he was still ' Christ's slave.' 

17 Only, as the Lord has apportioned to each, as God has 
called each, so let him comport himself. And so I am giving 

1 8 order in all the churches. Had one been circumcised when 
he was called ? Let him not undo the operation. 1 Has 
one been called in uncircumcision ? Let him not be cir- 

i9cumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is 

so nothing : keeping God's commandments is everything. In 

ai the calling wherein each was called, let him remain. Were 

you a slave when you were called ? Never mind ; but if 

you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. 2 

22 For one who was a slave when he was called in the Lord is 
the Lord's freedman ; similarly, one who was free when he was 

23 called is a slave of Christ. ' You were bought at a price ' : 

24 become not slaves of men. Where each was called, brothers, 
there let him remain in God's company. 

• Christ's The Apostle had a special reason for thus introducing the 

question of slavery and enlarging upon it. In his first letter, 

vi. 2a by way of inculcating the moral obligation of redemption, 

1 This was sometimes done by Jews to escape Gentile taunts in the baths and 
gymnasia (cf. Schtirer, I. i. p. 203). On the method cf. Wetstein. 

* /xdWov %p?7<rcu admits of two interpretations. 1. Supply rrj SovXeig. : 'although 
(cf. Lk. xi. 8) you can gain your freedom, rather remain in slavery' {fxaXXov 
SotiXeve). So Chrys. : 6£Xuv delicti, Sti ovdev jS\d7rrei rj BovXda iXXa kclI u?0eA«. 
Similarly Ambrstr. (who regards the precept as corrective of a possible mis- 
understanding : 'lest perhaps, on hearing, "Were you a slave when- you were 
called? Never mind," one should be more negligent in good service of his master 
after the flesh, and thus the doctrine of Christ should be blasphemed'), Beng., 
Meyer, Alford. 2. Supply ry eXevdeplg. : 'if indeed (cf. Lk. xi. 18) you can gain 
your freedom, avail yourself of it,' el 86t>a<rai kXevdepwdrjvau, iXcvdcptidyTi (Chrys., 
who quotes this interpretation disapprovingly). So Luth., Beza, Calv., Grot., 
Lightfoot. This is preferable, since it is natural to supply rrj eXevdeplg from 
tXetdepos. On xPVvOc" in the sense of ' avail oneself of an opportunity within 
one's reach,' cf. ix. 12, 15. The Apostle does not mean that slavery is actually 
the preferable condition but only that it should be accepted when it is one's 
appointed lot. 



THE THIRD MISSION 265 

he had written : ' You are not your own ; for you were 
bought at a price. Glorify God, then, in your body ' ; and 
it seems that the Corinthians had asked what redemption 
was worth if it was only a new bondage. Paul answers with 
that paradox : ' The Lord's freedman, Christ's slave.' Here 
is a magnificent conception which had captivated his 
imagination and colours all his thought of redemption. It 
was based upon a merciful Greek usage. When a slave was 
hardly treated, he might take refuge in a temple, particularly 
the Temple of Theseus or the Temple of the Erinnyes at 
Athens, and claim the privilege of being sold to the deity. 1 
He had previously brought thither his purchase-price, the 
hoarding of his poor peculium, and when this was handed 
over to his master in the presence of witnesses, he forthwith 
passed into the god's possession, and thenceforth he was 
unassailably and irrevocably free. He did not pass into the 
service of the temple. He had been ' bought for freedom.' 
He was the god's property, and it would have been sacrilege 
for any mortal to claim dominion over him. 2 

And here the Apostle recognised an image of the Christian 
Redemption. The sinner is * a slave of sin/ and the legalist Rom. vi. 
is ' a slave of the Law ' ; but when he ' entrusts himself to GaUv. 
Christ for freedom,' he is ' bought at a price,' and thenceforth I ' 7> v - x ; 
he is 'called for freedom.' He is 'Christ's slave,' and it 20,%. 23; 
were sacrilege that he should ever again ' become a slave of Gal - v - J 3- 
man ' or ' again get into the grip of a yoke of slavery.' His L jGsJ"' 
slavery to Christ is a sacred freedom, a complete and irre- v - *• 
vocable emancipation. And hence, when Paul styled himself Cf. Rom. 
' a slave of Jesus Christ,' it was no epithet of self-abasement }; \] PhlL 

1 Cf. schol. on Aristoph. Equit. 1308 ; Suidas under Qi)<reiov ; Plut. Thes. 36 ; 
Pollux, vii. 13. 

2 The usage is exemplified by an inscription recently discovered at Delphi 
(cf. Deissmann, Light from the 4ttcient East, pp. 327 ff.). It is dated the first 
year of 2nd c. B.C. iirpiaro 6 'Air6\\o}v 6 Iltfflios irapk 2o><ri/3tou 'Aficpiacrios iw' 
eXevdepla <ru>/y.a yvpatKelov 5 6vo/na NIkchci, rb y^vos'Pcafiatav, Tifias dpyvpiov fivav 
rpiwi' kclI ijfxi/jLvaiov. irpoaTroddras /caret rov v6/liov EtywacrTos 'Afttpicrcrefc. rav ti/jlclv 
d7re%et. rav 5£ ojvolv iTricxrevtxe N^/cata ra> 'AttoWupi iir* iXevdepiq., * The Pythian 
Apollo bought from Sosibius of Amphissa for freedom a woman slave named 
Nicsea, by race a Roman, at a price of three and a half minae of silver. Previous 
vendor according to the law, Eumnastus of Amphissa. The price received. And 
the purchase {i.e., herself) Nicsea entrusted to Apollo for freedom.' Then follow 
the signatures of the witnesses 



266 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

but a title of supreme honour, his proudest boast. Because 
he was ' Christ's slave/ he was ' the Lord's freedman.' 
(4)Vir- The next question related to the practice of virginity 

glnlty ' which already prevailed among the Jewish sect of the 
Essenes, 1 and which by and by came into high repute in the 
Christian Church. It was thus early advocated by the 
ascetic party at Corinth as a special merit in both sexes. 

Here again the Apostle confesses that the Lord had left 
no decision, and he propounds his own judgment with un- 
concealed diffidence. It follows from the legitimacy of 
marriage that there is no essential excellence in virginity. 
This he allows ; nevertheless there was a consideration 
which weighed with him and disposed him, in existing circum- 
stances, to concede the ascetic contention. The Day of the 
Lord, according to the confident though mistaken expectation 
of the Apostolic Church, was at hand ; and in view of that 
imminent consummation and its disastrous prelude it were 
well that a Christian, as he valued his own peace and desired 
to acquit himself worthily, should refrain from worldly 
entanglements. The Lord's cause claimed his entire 
devotion, and domestic cares would distract his mind. 
Michelangelo never married, alleging that ' art is a sufficiently 
exacting mistress ' ; and are the claims of the Kingdom of 
Heaven less engrossing or less imperative ? 

Hence, in existing circumstances, it seemed to the Apostle 
that celibacy was not merely a counsel of prudence but a 
Christian duty. Nevertheless he would leave it an open 
question, and he recognises a situation where marriage was 
expedient. Evidently he is dealing here with an actual case 
which had been submitted to his judgment — that of a Chris- 
tian who had plighted his troth and had since been persuaded 
of the excellence of virginity yet shrank from doing his 
fiancee a wrong. 

His handling of the case is well illustrated by the story of 
Ammon, the Egyptian monk. 2 He found himself in that 
very position ; and in deference to his kinsfolk's impor- 
tunities he kept his troth, but on bringing his bride home 
he read to her the Apostle's counsel in this passage and 

1 CI. p. 447. 8 Cf. Socr. Eecl. Hist. rv. aj. 



THE THIRD MISSION 267 

enlarged upon it, setting forth the ills of marriage and the 
advantages of virginity. His arguments prevailed, and the 
wedded yet virgin pair betook themselves to a hut in the 
Nitrian Desert and lived there for a while in pure companion- 
ship, until at her proposal they took up their abodes in 
separate huts and practised the ascetic life to the end of 
their days. 

It is such ' spiritual marriage ' that the Apostle recommends 
where troth has been plighted and cannot without cruelty 
be broken ; and the relationship must in nowise be con- 
founded with that perilous intimacy which clerics and 
monks maintained in after days with ' sisters ' and ' beloved/ 
and which was justly stigmatised as a scandal in the case of 
Paul of Samosata. 1 The virginity which is here contem- 
plated is a triumph of heroic self-abnegation, a voluntary 
abstinence from legitimate indulgence ; and the Apostle 
recognises the extreme difficulty of the achievement, and 
while recommending it does not enjoin it. It is marriage 
that he has in view ; and while he suggests abstinence from 
its privileges, he freely permits their exercise. He distinctly 
reaffirms the permanence of the marriage-bond. Abstinence 
must be by mutual consent, and the refusal of nuptial 
rights would be an injustice. 

as Regarding virgins : 2 I have no injunction of the Lord, but 
I give my judgment as one whose experience of the Lord's 

26 mercy entitles him to trust. I think, then, this is as a general 
principle 3 the honourable course in view of the present con- 

27 straint — it is honourable for a man to be in this estate. Are 
you bound to a wife ? Do not seek release. Have you no 

28 wife to be released from ? 4 Do not seek one. If, however, 
you do marry, you have committed no sin ; and if your 

1 Cf. Eus. Hist. Eccl. VII. 30. It was in the course of this unhappy case that 
the a8e\<pai or dyairrjTai were stigmatised by the Antiochenes, with their knack 
of coining epithets (cf. p. 6j), as vweLaaKToi, virgines subintroductce. Cf. 
Heinichen on Eus. I.e., Exc. xiu. ; Bingham, Ant. vi. ii. 13. 

2 vapdivos was both masc. and fem. Cf. Rev. xiv. 4, vapdivos was a title 
of the Apostle John. 

3 Kakbv -uirapxeiv, cf. n. on Gal. ii. 14, p. 200. 

* \4\vaai does not imply that the man has been bound. Cf. Ignat. Ad Magn, 
xii : el yap ko.1 5e'8e[xat, irpbs '4va tuv \e\vfiivojv vp,Qv ovk flfil, 'though I am 
bound, I am not comparable with one of you who are free.' 



268 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

virgin marry, she has committed no sin. But such persons 
will have distress in the flesh, and I am for sparing you. 

29 This, however, I admit, 1 brothers : Our opportunity is 
abridged ; henceforth those who have wives must be as 

30 though they had none, 2 and those who weep as though they 
did not weep, and those who rejoice as though they did not 
rejoice, and those who buy as though they possessed nothing, 

31 and those who use the world as though they refrained from its 
full use ; for the world as it is now constituted is passing away. 

32 And I wish you to be free from anxiety. 3 The unmarried man 
is anxious about the Lord's affairs — how he may please the 

33 Lord ; while one who is married is anxious about the world's 

34 affairs — how he may please his wife ; and so his interests are 
divided. Also the woman — the widow and the virgin 4 — is 
anxious about the Lord's affairs, that she may be holy both in 
body and in spirit ; but one who is married is anxious about 

35 the world's affairs — how she may please her husband. This 
I say for your profit, not that I may cast a halter round your 
necks ; no, the end in view is seemliness and attendance on 
the Lord without distraction. 5 

36 But if one thinks he is behaving unseemly toward his virgin, 
in case he be over-lusty, and there is no help for it, let him do 

37 what he desires ; he is not sinning ; let them marry. But one 
who stands steadfast in his heart and has no constraint but has 
authority where his own will is concerned, and has decided in 
his own heart to keep his virgin intact, will do honourably. 

38 And so, while one who puts his virgin to the use of marriage 
does honourably, one who refrains will do better. 6 

1 <pr)ixL, cf. x. 15, 19 ; xv. 50. 

2 to \oLirbv Xva, ellipt., 'henceforth (see to it) that.' Cf. 2 Cor. viii. 7j 
Mk. v. 23. Tertullian's 'superest ut' {Ad Uxor. 1. 5) and Vulg, ' reliquum est 
ut ' import a Latin idiom. , 

3 Epict. in. xxii. 45-49 is an interesting parallel to this passage. 

4 Reading ^efiipiffrai. nal i) yvvi) ■}] &yap.os ical ij vapdhos fiepi/ivq! (W. H., 
Nestle). Tisch. : rrj yvvaiKl. teal fj,ep,epio~Tat koX i) yvvi] /ecu i] irapdevos' rj dya/ios 
fiepi/xvq., ' and there is a difference between the wife and the virgin : the unmarried 
woman is anxious.' 

5 cLTrepicv-affTus, cf. Lk. x. 40 : irepieffTroiTo irepl iroXXrjv diaKovtav, ' distracted 
about much service,' the only other instance of the phrase in N. T. — a significant 
paiallel. 

e The situation here has been conceived in two ways. The prevailing idea, as 
old as Chrys. (cf. De Virg. 78), is that the Apostle is dealing with the case of a 
father who, recognising the excellence of virginity, would keep his daughter 
unmarried but fears he is dealing hardly with her when he sees her youth fading 
{eav rj vtv epa.Kjj.os, ' if she be past the flower of her age '). This is supported by 
(l) virlpa.KiJ.os, if it mean 'past the flower of youth,' and (2) ya/ulfeiv, if it must be 
understood as 'give in marriage.' On the other hand, it is irreconcilable with 
yafieiruaav, which can hardly mean anything else than 'let them {i.e., the tis and 



THE THIRD MISSION 269 

39 A woman is bound all her husband's life-time ; but if he be 
gone to his rest, she is free to marry whom she will, provided 

40 it be in the Lord. But she is more blessed if she remain as she 
is, according to my judgment ; and I fancy too I have God's 
Spirit. 

The second problem which the Corinthian rescript sub- 2. Things 
mitted to the Apostle was the legitimacy of eating things to Mois? d 
sacrificed to idols ; and this was a problem which inevitably 
confronted a Christian community in a heathen city. It 
was only a portion of a sacrificial victim that was consumed 
on the altar, sometimes only a few hairs ; and the remainder 
was used as food. The sacrifices were numerous, insomuch 
that the meat-market was largely furnished from the 
temples. And thus the likelihood was that the meat which 
a Christian purchased was the flesh of an idol-sacrifice. 
It may indeed have been possible for him, ere he made his 
purchase, to inquire and ascertain its origin ; but there was 
no such remedy when he was invited to the table of a 
heathen friend. It was the fashion for a devout heathen, 
by way of thanksgiving for good fortune, to hold a feast in 
the temple of his deity and invite his acquaintances to share 
it. 1 It was a religious celebration, and participation was 
impossible for a Christian. His presence at the banquet 
would have been open idolatry, an act of homage to the 
heathen deity. It was, however, another matter when a 
Christian was invited by a heathen neighbour to visit his 
house and enjoy his hospitality. It was simply a social 

his Trapdivos) marry.' It is thus not a father but a lover that is in question, nor 
are the objections to this view valid, (i) uiripa.K/xos occurs only here, and while 
it might mean ' past the flower of youth,' it may rather mean ' exceedingly lusty.' 
Cf. iTrepaitfidfciv, 'excel in youthful vigour' (Athen. 657 d). (2) yap.i$eiv is 
found only in N. T. (cf. Mt. xxii. 30 ; xxiv. 38) ; and on the analogy of similar 
formations (cf. TreKeKi^eLV, 1/j.aTi^eiv, aaj3j3a.Tl£eiv, lovdat^eLv) it should denote, not 
'give in marriage,' but rather 'practise marriage,' 'put to the marriage-use.' 
Moreover, neither dcrxvfJ-ove'iv nor Zyuv dva-yK^v is appropriate to mere paternal 
severity. The former implies gross indecency (cf. Rom. i. 27 ; Rev. xvi. 15), and 
eLvdyKT] can only signify the constraint of passion overpowering et-ovcriav irepl rod 
iliov 6e\i]/xaros. 

1 Specimens of such invitations have been unearthed at Oxyrhynchus. Oxyrk. 
Fap. 1 10: ipurfi <re Xaiprtpcov Senrv'Tjaat as K\dvr\v rod Kvpiov 2apairi8os iv ry 
ZapaTreiyatipiov, tfris £ctiv ie, aird upas 0, ' Chceremon invites you to dine at the 
table of the Lord Sarapis in the Temple of Sarapis to-morrow, the 15th, at 3 
o'clock.' Cf. No. 523. 



opinions. 



270 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

occasion ; and why should a Christian refuse the invitation, 
and thus not merely exclude himself from kindly human 
intercourse but miss the opportunity for leavening the 
world ? Still a difficulty remained. The flesh of victims 
sacrificed in the heathen temples would be served without 
scruple at a heathen table ; and was it legitimate for a 
Christian to partake of it ? 
Conflicting The question was agitating the Corinthian Church, and 
two opinions were hotly maintained. There was a scrupulous 
party which absolutely condemned the eating of things 
sacrificed to idols, and there was a liberal party which 
regarded it as an affair of no moment ; and after the manner 
of controversialists each had run to an extreme. It appears 
that the advocates of liberalism were in so far the worse 
offenders that they had sinned against the law of charity by 
assuming an air of superiority and regarding their opponents 
with supercilious contempt. At all events it is to them that 
the Apostle addresses his remonstrances and reproofs. 

He begins by quoting a series of sentences from their 
statement of the controversy, and he dismisses each with a 
curt and incisive criticism. 

viii. 1 Regarding things sacrificed to idols : ' We are aware that 
we all have knowledge. 1 

Here speaks the self-complacent intellectual who has 
never learned the Socratic lesson that the beginning of 
knowledge is the recognition of one's ignorance, 1 still less 
the Christian truth of the supremacy of love. And so the 
Apostle answers : 

Knowledge breeds windy conceit ; it is love that builds 

2 up. If any one fancies he has attained any knowledge, he 

3 has no such knowledge yet as he should have ; but if any one 
loves God, he it is that is known by Him. 

cf. pt. The prevalent notion alike of the later Jews and of the 

ps*evi 37 ; primitive Christians regarding the gods of heathendom was 

Rev. ix. 20. ftiat they were demons ; and though they were subsequently 

accounted as merely dead men superstitiously deified, yet 

1 Plat. Apol. 21 D. 



Arrogant 
liberalism. 



THE THIRD MISSION 27$ 

it was maintained that the demons worked in their names. 1 
Hence the danger of participation in heathen rites. It 
involved the risk of demonic possession ; and this is the 
reason which the scrupulous party alleged for abstinence 
from meat which had been sacrificed to idols. The intel- 
lectuals had adopted what seemed to them a more rational 
attitude. They regarded the heathen gods as mere fictions 
of superstition, and they argued that, since an idol was 
' nothing in the world,' it could inflict no injury. The fear 
of exposure to the malign operation of demons by eating 
things sacrificed to idols was a baseless apprehension. 

4 Regarding, then, the eating of things sacrificed to idols : 
' We are aware that an idol is nothing in the world, and that 

5 there is no God but One. For, though there are so-called 

' gods," whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many 

6 " gods " and many " lords," 2 yet for us there is one God, the 
Father, who is the source of all things, and it is to Him that 
we tend ; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all 
things, and through Him are we.' 

It may be so, answers the Apostle ; but it is not every 
one who has attained so enlightened a view. Some cling to 
the old notion, and their scruples are entitled to consideration. 

7 But your knowledge dwells not in all. Some, retaining to 
this hour the old notion about the idol, eat the food as an idol- 
sacrifice, and their conscience, being weak, is polluted. 

8 ' Food/ said the liberals again, ' will not recommend us to 
God. We are neither the worse off by not eating nor the 
better off by eating.' 

True, answers the Apostle, but here again consideration 
is a duty. It is spiritually injurious to do what one's con- 
science disapproves ; and if your example induces a weak 

1 Cf. Theophil. Ad Autol. I. p. 75 B (Sylburg.) : koX to, fikv hvbixara $>v (prjs 
<refiecrda.i 8eQi> ovS/jlcltol itrri veKpQiv avdpthiriov. Tert. De Sped. IO : ' Scimus nihil 
esse nomina mortuorum, sicut nee ipsa simulacra eorum : sed non ignoramus qui 
sub istis nominibus et institutis simulacris operentur et gaudeant et divinitatem 
mentiantur, nequam spiritus scilicet dsemones.' 

2 K-0pLo% was a title not only of the heathen deities (cf. p. 269, n. 1) but of the 
Roman Emperors. Cf. the refusal of the Egyptian Jews to call Caesar ' Lord,' 
since they 'held that God alone was the Lord' (Jos. De Bell. Jud. VII. x. 1) 



272 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

brother to violate his conscience, you are wronging not 
merely him but Christ who died for him. It is sacrilege to 
esteem lightly the purchase of the Saviour's precious blood. 

9 Beware, however, lest this authority of yours prove a 

io stumbling-block to the weak. For if some one see you, the 

man with knowledge, at table in an idol-temple, will not his 

conscience, in case he is weak, be built up to the pitch of eating 

ii the things sacrificed to idols ? Your knowledge is the ruin of 

12 the weak man, the brother for whom Christ died. And thus, 
in sinning against the brothers and smiting their conscience, 

13 weak as it is, it is against Christ that you are sinning. Where- 
fore, if food ensnares * my brother, I will eat flesh never more, 
lest I ensnare my brother. 

The And now he proceeds to examine two pleas which the 

defence : liberals urged in defence of their attitude. One was the plea 
(i) The of Christian liberty. They had a grievance, and indeed a 
christian serious grievance. Whatever scorn they might have felt, 
liberty. they would have suffered their opponents to practise their 
scrupulosity ; but this did not suffice the latter. Not 
content with personal abstinence, they insisted that their 
practice should be the Church's law. It was a denial of 
Christian liberty, and the liberals naturally resented so 
intolerable a tyranny. 
a larger The Apostle's .answer is that, while Christian liberty is 
indeed a sacred right, it is a Christian duty to forgo one's 
rights when larger interests are at stake. And by way of 
illustration he adduces his own example, in no spirit of self- 
glorification but with the double purpose of resolving the 
immediate perplexity and at the same time repelling the 
Judaist attack on his own apostolic authority. 
Paul's He has just affirmed his willingness to abstain from flesh 

ship. e rather than injure a weak brother. Was that a dereliction 
either of his Christian liberty or of his apostolic authority ? 
His apostleship, he deftly remarks, needed no vindication 
with the Corinthians. For they owed him their conversion, 
and this constituted an incontrovertible attestation of his 
divine commission ; it was his sufficient answer to his critics 

U. i Am I not free ? Am I not an Apostle ? Have I not seen 
2 Jesus our Lord ? Are not you my work in the Lord ? If to 

1 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 99. 



THE THIRD MISSION 273 

others I am not an Apostle, yet to you at least I am ; for you 
3 are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. My defence to 
my critics 1 is just this. 

He was an Apostle, and he was entitled to apostolic His 
privileges. The other Apostles had wives who accompanied J£SL 1C 
them on their missionary travels ; and wherever they so- 
journed, they were maintained at the Church's expense. 
These privileges belonged to him, yet he had never exercised 
them. He had remained unwed that he might the more cf. vii. 29- 
freely devote himself to his ministry ; and it was notorious 35 * 
that he and his former colleague Barnabas had never exacted 
maintenance from the Church. The Corinthians knew how, 
during his ministry among them, he had earned his daily 
bread by plying his craft of tent-making, and how ill he 
would at times have fared but for the generosity of his 
Macedonian friends. 2 That w r as his constant practice ; he 
was pursuing it even then at Ephesus. 

4, 5 Are we not entitled to food and drink ? Are we not 

entitled to travel about with a sister, a wife, like the rest of cf. Mt. xiii 
6 the Apostles and the Lord's brothers 3 and Cephas ? Or is 5S=Mk. 
it only Barnabas and I that are bound to work for our daily vl * 3 ' 
bread ? 

And what was the reason ? He had a right to remunera- why he 
tion. It is a principle of common equity that a man should exercise 
be paid for his service and live by the fruit of his labour ; and these - 
it is recognised by the Scriptures. The Sacred Law enjoins 
that the very oxen should be allowed their mouthfuls of the 
grain which they tread out on the threshing-floor ; and a 
man is more in God's sight than an ox. And if the rule held 
in common work, it held much more in spiritual service. 
If the ploughman and the thresher were entitled to their 
wage, should the sowers of the heavenly seed go unrequited ? 
And who had so strong a claim on the Corinthians as Paul 
and his companions who had won them to the Faith ? Yet 
he had waived his right. And the reason was his solicitude 

1 toIs eixk &va.Kplvov<nv, 'those who examine me.' Cf, pp. 252 f. 

* Cf. p. 152. 

* Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 18. 
S 



274 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

for the advancement of the Gospel. He would suffer any 
privation rather than put a hindrance in its way. 

7 Who ever goes a-soldiering at his own expense ? Who plants 
a vineyard, and does not eat its fruit ? Or who tends a herd, 

8 and never tastes the milk of the herd ? Is this mere human 

9 reasoning ? Is it not also the teaching of the Law ? For in 
Dt xxv. 4. t j ie £ aw Q | ^j oses ft j s wr itten : ' Thou shalt not muzzle the 

ox while it is treading out the grain.' Is it for the oxen that 

10 God is concerned ? Or is it entirely on our account that He 
says it ? Yes, it is on our account that it was written that the 
plougher has a right in doing his work and the thresher has a 

11 right in doing his to the hope of getting a share. If we sowed 
for you the spiritual seed, is it a great thing if we shall reap 

12 your material harvest ? If others share the claim upon you, 
do not we still more ? But we did not exercise this claim. 
No, we put up with x everything that we may occasion no 
hindrance to the Gospel of Christ. 

Sscan. en ** ere tne Apostle was trenching on painful ground. It 
was a shame to the Corinthians that they had withheld his 
remuneration while he ministered among them, in face, too, 
of the generous example of their Macedonian fellow-converts. 
They knew the ordinance of the Law in this matter and the 
Lord's reaffirmation of it. His maintenance was their duty, 
and it in no wise absolved them that he had uncomplainingly 
suffered their neglect. Nor was he complaining now. Self- 
respect restrained him, and a higher motive still. His 
preaching of the Gospel was no voluntary office. It had been 

xxii. A i7-2i. "thrust upon him. He had reluctantly undertaken it at the 
Lord's behest, conscious of his unfitness ; and his nolo 
episcopari had defined the conditions of his ministry. It 
was not a voluntary service ; else he would have been at 
liberty to bargain for remuneration. It was a divine 
stewardship, a sacred trust, an imperious obligation ; 
and therefore the arrangement of terms did not lie with 
him : he must do the work and fare as he might. He was 
indeed entitled to his wage ; but, wage or no wage, he must 
preach the Gospel. That was his sole concern. 

13 Do you not know that those who do the Temple's work, eat 
iritt. 8, |i ; of the Temple's provision ; those who attend the altar, share 

1 Cf. n. on 1 Th. HI 1, p. 160. 



THE THIRD MISSION 275 

14 the altar's portion ? So also the Lord gave order for those nt. xviii. 
who proclaim the Gospel to get their livelihood from the *-5- 

15 Gospel. But I have exercised none of these rights. And I IO *. Lk X X| 
am not writing this in order that it may be so done in my case ; 7- 

for it is a point of honour for me to die rather than * No 

16 one will make my boast an empty thing. For, if I preach the 
Gospel, it is nothing for me to boast of ; for necessity is imposed 

17 upon me ; ay, woe is me if I do not preach it ! For if it be 
by choice that I am engaged in this business, I have a wage ; 
but if it be by compulsion, I am entrusted with a stewardship. 

The preaching of the Gospel was his sole concern, and its The 
triumph his only reward ; and therefore he sacrificed his JJ^Sf of 
personal interests and abjured his rights. His one concern sole in- 
was the winning of men for Christ, and he would not contemn 
their prepossessions and prejudices but, where no principle 
was at stake, would defer to these and always treat them 
gently and patiently and sympathetically. 

18 What, then, is the wage which induces me in preaching the 
Gospel to set no charge upon it, refraining from the exercise of 

19 my full right in the Gospel's service ? Being free from all 
men, I made myself a slave to all that I might gain the greater 

20 number. And I became to the Jews as a Jew that I might 
gain Jews ; to those under Law as under Law, though I am 
not myself under Law, that I might gain those under Law ; 

21 to those without Law as one without Law — though I am not 
without God's Law ; no, I am within Christ's Law — that I Cf. Gal. 

22 might gain those without Law ; to the weak I became weak Vls 2 - 
that I might gain the weak ; to every one I have become 

23 everything that I might in every case save some. And every- cf. 1 Jo. 
thing I do on account of the Gospel, that I may share its j - 3- 
fellowship with others. 

And thus he proved his Christian liberty by freely relin- His seif- 
quishing it, and he commends his attitude to the Corinthian dlscl P lmef 
liberals by a familiar example — the Isthmian Games which 
every fifth year drew eager multitudes to their city. 2 The 

1 An aposiopesis. He is about to say ' I had rather starve, airodave'iv Xific^ 
(Chrys.), than accept grudging remuneration,' when he repents of the harshness. 

8 Cf. p. 150. [Clem. Rom.] Ad Cor. II. vii : &yb)vi<r(I>fji.eda i tlddres 8ti iv x^P^ 
6 ayibv Kai 8ri els tovs (pdaprods dydvas K.a.Tair\iovffiv iroWol, dXV ou 7t&vt£s 
ffTe<f>a.vovvTai. el firj ol iroWa Koirid<rai>Te$ Kai /ca\u>s ay wvia a. fievoi, 'let us contend, 
knowing that the contest is at hand, and that many voyage hither to the corruptible 
contests, yet it is not all that are crowned but only those that have toiled much 
and contended honourably.' 



276 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

prize was a poor chaplet of parsley-leaves, and the victor 
wore it proudly ; but he would never have won it by the 
effort of the hour unless he had subjected himself to a long 
cf. 2 Tim. and strenuous preparatory discipline. And self-discipline 
is needful for our nobler contest if we would win the un- 
fading crown. 

24 Do you not know that the runners in the race-course all run 

but only one wins the prize ? Run like him that you may 

5 succeed in winning it. And every one who enters the contest 

practises self-control in every particular — they to win a fading 

6 crown, but we an unfading. For my part, then, it is thus that 

I run — with a clear end in view ; it is thus that I box — as no 

27 ' striker of the air.' x No, I bruise 2 my body and enslave it, 

lest perchance, after acting as herald of the game for others, 

I should myself fail in the ordeal. 3 

(2) The It was not merely, however, as a violation of Christian 

Lcramen- liberty that the intolerance of the scrupulous party in the 
taisecurity. Corinthian Church was resented. It was maintained that 
there was no danger in the eating of things sacrificed to 
idols inasmuch as the Christian Sacraments provided an 
efficacious prophylactic. The idea was natural to minds 
familiar with the ritual of the Greek Mysteries, and it per- 
sisted in the Church and persists to this day. 4 The Mysteries 
were ' a medicine of immortality.' Their aim was the 
communication of the divine life, and this was achieved by 
the ceremonial of initiation, especially the purificatory 
lustration and the sacrificial feast which followed it and 
v/hich was designated ' Salvation.' It was supposed that 
the deity was present in the consecrated food, and in eating 
it the worshippers ate the deity and thus participated in the 
divine life. It was a purely physical process, and it was an 
offence to the moral instinct. Thus it is told of Diogenes the 
Cynic that, when the Athenians urged him to be initiated, 

1 at pa. dtpeip, aerem verier arc, a common proverb, denoting futile endeavour. 
The metaphor is a boxer missing his antagonist and striking the empty air. 
Eustathius derives the proverb from Horn. 77. XX. 446 : rp\% S' tepa n^e paQeiav. 
Cf. Verg. JEn. V. 377 : 'verberat ictibus auras.' 

* vTrwiri&fa, cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 322. 

8 &doKip.os y4vw/j.ai, cf. n. on I Th. v. 21, p. 165. 

4 Cf . Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages, Lect. X ; Legge, Forerunners 
and Rivals of Christianity, 1. pp. 130 f. 



THE THIRD MISSION 27? 

since the initiated were awarded the first place in the Un- 
seen World, he answered : ' It is absurd if Agesilaus and 
Epaminondas are to drag it out in the mire, and any worthless 
creatures through their having been initiated are to inhabit 
the Islands of the Blessed.' v What mean you ? ' he said 
again. ' Will Patsecion the thief have a better fate after 
death than Epaminondas, because he has been initiated ? ' x 

To the Greek mind the Sacraments of Baptism and the a vain con. 
Eucharist were the Christian Mysteries, and accordingly the 
intellectual Corinthians argued that, since they were sharers 
in the divine life through the sacramental lustration and the 
sacramental feast, they were immune from danger. They 
were possessed by the Divine Spirit, and they were therefore 
secure against demonic invasion and ran no risk through 
eating things sacrificed to idols. So they reasoned ; and 
the Apostle, following up his insistence on the necessity of 
strenuous self-discipline, proceeds to demonstrate the vanity 
of their dream of sacramental security. 

He adduces an historical parallel. The Israelites had An his- 
their Sacraments in the Wilderness. They were besprinkled p^-Sei. 
by the Shekinah, the overshadowing Cloud of the Lord's Cf. Ex. 
Presence ; and they passed through the waters of the Red ™] V9-31. ' 
Sea. This was their Baptism, their sacramental lustration 
after the twofold symbolism of effusion and immersion. 2 
And they had also their Eucharist, since the manna and cf. Ex. 
the water from the stricken rock were their sacramental xvl " xvn - ?• 
meat and drink. All the forty years of their pilgrimage 
they not only ate that heavenly bread but drank that 
heavenly drink ; for, according to a Jewish legend, the rock 
of Horeb followed their march, and wherever they encamped, 
it stood at the entrance of the Tabernacle and poured forth 
its abundant stream. 3 

x. 1 For I do not wish you to ignore the fact, 4 brothers, that our 
fathers were all under the Cloud and all passed through the 

2 Sea, and all pledged themselves to Moses by baptism in the 

3 Cloud and in the Sea ; and they all ate the same spiritual food 

1 Diog. Laert. vi. 39 ; Plut. De Aud. Poet. iv. 76. 

* Cf. Append. VI. 

* Cf. Lightfoot, Hor. Heb., and Wetstein on 1 Cor. x. 4. . 
4 Cf. n. on 1 Th. iv. 13, p. 163. 



278 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Num. xiv. 
16. 



4 and all drank the same spiritual drink ; for they drank all the 
while of a spiritual rock as it followed them, and the rock was 

5 the Christ. Yet with the greater number of them God was 
not well pleased ; for ' they were laid low in the wilderness.' 



a warning After the spiritualising method of exegesis which he had 
selves. learned in the Rabbinical school, 1 the Apostle sees in the 
ancient story a foreshadowing of the Christian order and a 
condemnation of the fond delusion of sacramental security. 
The Cloud and the Sea signified Baptism, and the bread 
from heaven and the water from the rock the Eucharist. 
' The rock was the Christ/ He was with the Israelites all 
unknown, ministering to them the grace which is now 
revealed in His Holy Sacraments. Yet it proved unavailing. 
They were seduced into idolatry, fornication, rebellion, and 
discontent. And their experience is an abiding admonition. 
There is no security in sacramental ritual. Temptation is 
ever present, and the one protection is God's aid — not the 
opus operatum of a sacramental rite but the grace which the 
rite expresses and seals, and which is ever accessible to 
humble and believing souls. 



Ex. xxxii. 

6. 

Num. xxv. 
1-9. 

xxi. 5, 6. 

xvi. 41-50 ; 
cf. Ex. xii. 
23 ; 2 Sam. 
xxiv. 16, 
17. 



6 And all this constitutes a warning to us, that we may not 

7 lust after evil things as they did. Do not turn idolaters like 
some of them, as it is written : ' The people sat down to eat 

8 and drink, and arose to frolic. ' And let us not commit fornica- 
tion as some of them did, and there fell in a single day twenty- 

9 three thousand. 2 And let us not try the Lord's patience too 
far, as some of them tried it, and they were destroyed by the 

10 serpents. And do not murmur as some of them did, and they 

11 were destroyed by the destroying angel. AH this happened to 
them by way of warning ; and it was written for the admonition 

12 of us to whom the tribute of the ages has accrued. 3 And so 

13 let him who fancies he stands firm look to it lest he fall. No 
temptation has seized you but such as is the common lot of 
man ; and God is faithful : He will not allow you to be tempted 



1 Cf. p. 27. 

* According to Num. xxv. 9, 'twenty-four thousand.' A mere slip of memory, 
the variant 'twenty-four thousand' (Arm.) being a copyist's emendation. 

3 We are ' the heirs of all the ages ' — the experience of the past and the wisdom 
it teaches. tAtj, 'taxes,' 'tribute,' 'toll' (cf. Mt. xvii. 25; Rom. xiii. 7). 
TeXuvrjs, ' a tax-gatherer ' ; TeXwvcov, 'the receipt of custom,' 'the place of toll' 
(cf. Mt. ix. 9). 



THE THIRD MISSION 279 

beyond your ability, but along with the temptation He will 
make also the way of escape, that you may be able to 
bear up. 

And now the Apostle points the lesson as regards the vexed The peril 
question of eating things sacrificed to idols : Eschew idolatry ; piicUy with 
have no complicity with it. There was reason in the scrupu- idolatry, 
losity of the narrow party ; and he demonstrates this with 
gentle irony by a dexterous manipulation of the confident 
contention of the intellectuals. For the sake of argument, 
not that he approved it, as, he observes, they were shrewd 
enough to perceive, he accepts their pagan theory of the 
Eucharist — that, as in the sacrificial feast of the Greek 
Mysteries the initiate fed on the deity and thus participated 
in the divine life, so in the Holy Supper the communicants 
drink Christ's blood and eat His flesh, and thus they all 
participate in His life. This crude notion, he remarks, was 
the primitive idea of sacrifice, and it appears in the sacrificial 
ritual of the Old Testament. 1 It was not the Apostle's view, 
but it was the view of the Corinthian intellectuals, and the 
consequence was obvious : if the principle held alike of the 
feast of the Lord's Table and of the feasts of the Jewish 
altar, then it held of the heathen sacrifices, and by eating 
things sacrificed to idols we participate in the idol's life. 
Ah, but, exclaim the intellectuals, you are admitting too 
much ! An idol is not a reality ; there is no actual person- 
ality behind it. True, answers the Apostle, but the Scrip- 
tures affirm that the heathen sacrifices are offered to demons ; 
and so indeed they are. There may be no such deity as 
Aphrodite or Bacchus ; but the demons of lust and drunken- 
ness are grim realities, and heathenism is their worship. 
Idolatry is the cult of uncleanness, and you cannot participate 
in it without pollution. Resolutely eschew it, and beware 
of provoking the righteous displeasure of Almighty God. 

14, 15 Wherefore, my beloved, flee away from idolatry. I am 

16 speaking as to shrewd men : judge you of my admission. The 

Cup of Blessing 2 which we bless — is it not a participation 

in the blood of Christ ? The bread which we break — is it 

1 Cf . The Atonement in the Light of History and the Modern Spirit, pp. 33 ff. 
$ The Sacramental Cup. Cf . The Days of His Flesh, p. 446. 



28o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Dt. xxxii. 
17- 



Dt. xxxii. 
21. 



17 not a participation in the body of Christ ? Because there 
is one bread, we, many as we be, are one body ; 1 for we all 

18 have a share of the one bread. Look at historic Israel : 
are not they that eat the sacrifices participants of the altar ? 

19 What, then, is my admission ? Is it that meat sacrificed 

20 to an idol is anything ? or that an idol is anything ? No, 
but that the things which they sacrifice, ' they sacrifice 
to demons and to a God who is no God ' ; and I do not 

21 wish you to participate with demons. You cannot drink 
the Lord's Cup and a cup of demons ; you cannot share 

22 in the Lord's Table and a table of demons. Or are we 
1 provoking the Lord to jealousy ' ? Are we stronger than 
He? 



The law There was, however, a larger consideration than personal 
ency. pe *" risk. It was the duty of Christian expediency, and this the 
Apostle now presents. He quotes the libertine maxim 
cf. vi. 12. ' Everything is allowable ' which he has already treated in 
his first letter to Corinth, 2 and which had apparently been 
repeated by the liberals in their plea for Christian libert}?. 
And his answer is that the proper consideration is not whether 
a thing be allowable but whether it be profitable, since, as 
William Penn has it, ' it is not enough that a thing be Right, 
if it be not fit to be done.' And nothing is ' fit to be done ' 
which, however innocent in itself, is hurtful to one's neigh- 
bour or liable to misconstruction. And he illustrates the 
application of the principle. When you go to market, it is 
unnecessary, it were mere morbid scrupulosity, to investigate 
the source of the meat which is offered for the sale. That 
does not concern you. And in the event of your accepting 
heathen hospitality, eat your host's provision without demur. 
You know nothing of its origin, and it were discourtesy to 
inquire. Suppose, however, one of your fellow-guests is a 
Christian of the narrow sort, and he warns you that a par- 
ticular dish contains sacrificial flesh : then quietly abstain 
from it. You have indeed no personal scruple, but if you 
ate it, your neighbour would be shocked. Your innocent 
action would appear to him unfaithfulness, and why should 
you expose yourself to needless calumniation ? Seek always 

1 So Calv., Beng. According to the ancient idea of the sacrificial meal, the 
common food established a common life. Otherwise : ' because we, the many, 
are one bread, one body.' * Cf. p. 236. 



THE THIRD MISSION 281 

the glory of God, and give no occasion, if you can help it, 
for aspersion of your Christian profession. 

23 ' Everything is allowable ' : yes, but it is not everything 
that is profitable. ' Everything is allowable ' : yes, but 

24 it is not everything that builds up. Let none seek his 

25 own interest — rather, his neighbour's. Everything that 
is sold in the meat-market eat, examining nothing in defer- 

26 ence to conscience ; for ' to the Lord the earth belongs p$. xxiv. i. 

27 and all that it contains.' If some stranger to the Faith 
invites you and you choose to go, eat everything that is set 
before you, examining nothing in deference to conscience. 

28 But if some one x say to you, ' This is a thing sacrificed in 

29 the Temple,' 2 do not eat it in deference to that person, your 
informant, and to conscience (by ' conscience ' I mean not 
your own conscience but your neighbour's) ; for what is 
the use of my liberty being judged by another conscience ? 3 

30 If I partake with thankfulness, why am I calumniated for 

31 a thing which I give thanks for ? Whether, then, you eat 
or drink or whatever you do, do everything for God's 

32 glory. Put no difficulty in the way of Jews, Greeks, or 

33 the Church of God, as I on my part pleasure every one in 
everything, not seeking my own profit but that of the 

xi. 1 generality of men, that they may be saved. Follow my 
example, as I follow Christ's. 

The administration of the primitive Church, following as it 3 . Abuses 
did the model of the Jewish Synagogue, was both familiar ™£&ip 
and congenial to Jewish Christians ; but it was novel to 
Gentile converts, and it is no surprise that, though the 
Apostle had, after his wont, been careful to instruct the cf. 2 Th. 
Corinthians in the proper usages, difficulties should have "' 1S * 
arisen. Two in particular had proved so serious that they 
were referred to his consideration. 

1 (1) A heathen fellow-guest (Chrys.), perhaps mischievously to annoy you; 
(2) the host, nempe convivator (Grot.); (3) a Christian fellow-guest of the 
scrupulous order (Alford, Meyer). The last is attested by the sequel, since only 
with a Christian would it be a matter of conscience. 

2 iepbdvTov ('sacrificed in the Temple') or debOvrov ('sacrificed to the god') is 
the heathen term, used out of courtesy at a heathen table rather than the oppro- 
brious Christian term elSuXdOvrov ('sacrificed to an idol'). 

3 Iva. ri (ytvrjTai), 'that what may come to pass?' i.e., to what good purpose, 
for what good end? Better forgo one's liberty than expose one's conduct to 
misconstruction and one's profession to calumniation. So Chrys. 



282 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Unveiled One had to do with the position of women in the Church, 
and it had probably been occasioned by the Apostle's doctrine 
Gai. ui. 28. that in Christ ' the distinctions of Jew and Greek, slave and 
free man, male and female disappear.' Certain enthusiasts 
among the Corinthian women-folk had applied the principle 
in a startling fashion. Spurning the old restrictions, not 
merely had they claimed and exercised the right to pray 
and prophesy in the assemblies of the Church, but they had, 
by necessary consequence, discarded the custom which re- 
quired that a woman should wear a veil when she appeared 
cf. Gen. in public. It was a Jewish custom. The veil was the mark 
5. f a mo dest woman, and its forcible removal by a rude hand 
was reckoned an outrage and the perpetrator was liable to 
a heavy penalty. 1 The regulation was approved by the 
Christian Church and was imposed on Gentile communities ; 
and thus the action of those Corinthian women was a violation 
of canonical order. 
The signi- It raised a double question : on the one hand, whether a 
the veil, woman might speak in the Church, and, on the other, whether 
she might appear unveiled in a public assembly. It was the 
latter that was agitating the Corinthians, and the Apostle 
meanwhile deals with it exclusively. He begins by enunciat- 
ing a large principle — the law of subordination. The woman 
is the head of the home, but she rules it in her husband's 
name : he is her head. His head, again, is Christ, and he 
rules his wife in Christ's name. Nor does the subordination 
cf. Phil. ii. end here. God is the head of Christ. The Father is supreme 
8 • jo. viii! in the Godhead, and the Son, who was obedient to the Father 
2 9- in the days of His flesh and did always the things that were 

cf. 1 Cor. pleasing to Him, is subject to Him eternally. There is thus 
xv. 27, 28. a c h a j n f subordination : woman's head is man, man's head 
is Christ, and Christ's head is God ; and it is a violation of 
the divine order of the Universe when woman disowns her 
subordination and departs from her degree. 

a I commend you for ' your remembrance of me in everything 

and your firm adherence to the traditions as I delivered them 

j to you.' a And I wish you to know that every man's Head 

1 Cf. Grotius and Wetstein on 1 Cor. xi. 5. 

I He quotes the rescript's protestation of loyalty. 



THE THIRD MISSION 283 

is Christ, and woman's head is the man, and Christ's Head is 
God. 

This principle, the Apostle argues, determines the ques- The 
tion of the veil. It was indeed right that a man should pray y S ag e tian 
or prophesy with uncovered head. And here emerges a 
Christian idea. The ancient usage was that priests in 
offering sacrifice and worshippers in the exercise of prayer 
should be veiled in token of reverence and acknowledgment 
of their unworthiness to approach the Divine Presence ; x 
but the Christians prayed with uncovered head in recognition cf. Heb. 
of their privilege of free access to the Throne of Grace. 2 IV * 1S ; 2 \ 6 ' 
They honoured Christ by entering with boldness into the 
Holy Place ; and therefore the Apostle declares that ' every 
man praying or prophesying with his head covered shames 
his Head.' It was otherwise, however, with a woman. She 
was subordinate, and she must maintain her degree. The 
veil was a token of subordination, a symbol of subjection to 
man, her head ; and by discarding it she shamed him. Her 
unveiling was a partial uncovering of her head, and why, he 
argues, should she be content with that ? Why not uncover 
it entirely by cutting off her hair, and thus complete her 
husband's dishonour and her own disgrace ? See what this 
means. The cutting off of a women's hair had a twofold 
significance. It was a sign of mourning : a widow cut off is. xv. 2 ; 
her hair and deposited it in her husband's tomb ; 3 and it £*{ ™* 29 ' 
was also a token of connubial unfaithfulness : an adulteress ^ z - vii .-. l8; 
was shaved. 4 If, argues the Apostle, you will cast off your 10. 
veil, then go all the way : cut off your hair, and proclaim 
yourself a widow ; shave your head, and proclaim yourself 
an adulteress. 

4 Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered 

5 shames his Head ; and every woman praying or prophesying 
with her head unveiled shames her head, for she is one and 

1 Cf. Lightfoot, Hot. Heb. on I Cor. xi. 4. This was the general custom also 
with the heathen. Cf. Grotius. 

2 Cf. Tert. Apol. 30 r ' Illuc suspicientes Christiani manibus expansis, quia 
innocuis ; capite nudo, quia non erubescimus ; denique sine monitore, quia de 
pectore oramus.' 

3 Cf. Robertson Smith, Religion of Semites, p. 306. 

4 In some quarters at all events. Cf. Tac. Germ. 19 



284 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

6 the same thing as the shaved adulteress. If a woman is not to 
be veiled, let her also cut off her hair ; but if it be disgraceful 
for a woman to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her be 
veiled. 

Appeal to Thus far he has merely appealed to the Christian usage, 
Scripture. ^ u t nQW ^ Q c ii ncnes his argument by a double sanction. 

First, he appeals to the Scriptures. The ancient story of 

cf. Gen. i. Creation teaches woman's subordination to man. Man was 

18-23! ' created first, ' in the image of God ' ; and then woman was 

' taken out of man.' Man, the crown of His creation, is 

the glory of God ; but woman, since she was derived from 

him, is the glory of man. Her glory is to his as the moon's 

Cf. Mk. n. light to the sun's. 1 And even as the Sabbath was made for 

man, and not man for the Sabbath, so man was not created 

for woman but woman for man. She was made for his 

help, and this is her office evermore. It is in subordination to 

him that she fulfils the end of her being ; and therefore it is 

fitting that she should wear a symbol of subjection on her 

head. The disuse is more than a dishonouring of man. 

cf. 1 Cor. We are encompassed continually, and especially in the place 

xii 9 22 ; V of prayer, by an invisible multitude, an innumerable company 

Tim.v.ai. f j^iy an g e i S ; and it becomes us to comport ourselves 

worthily in their presence. ' If,' reasons the Apostle, ' you 

despise your husband, reverence the angels.' 2 



Gen. i. 26, 7 For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is 
27, v. 1. primally ' the image ' and glory ' of God ' ; whereas the woman 
Gen. ii. 23. 8 is man's glory. For it was not man that was ' taken out of ' 
9 woman but woman that was ' taken out of ' man ; yes, and 
Gen. ii. 18. it was not man that was created for the woman but woman 

1 ' Minus aliquid viro, ut Luna lumen minus Sole' (Grot.). 

2 Chrys. : el yap rod apdpbs Karacppoveis, (pijal, robs &yye"\ovt eLlSeffd-rjrt. Of 
other interpretations of did, toi)s dyye'Xovs (ver. 10) these may be mentioned : 

(1) The two guardian angels who, according to a beautiful Jewish belief, accom- 
pany every one, on the right side and the left. Cf. Hieronym. on Mt. xviii. 10. 

(2) The leaders of the Church (Ambrstr., Euth. Zig.). Cf. Rev. ii. 1, etc. ; 
Soar. EccL Hist. iv. 23, where Evagrius terms Serapion, bishop of Thmuis, 
6 ttjs Q/AovLTuiv iKuXycrlas &yye\os. (3) Evil angels who, according to a repulsive 
Jewish notion, were themselves incited to wantonness by the sight of an unveiled 
woman and would incite her. Cf. Tert. Contra Marc. V. 8 ; De Virg. Vel. 7 j 
Wetstein's Rabbinical quotations. 



THE THIRD MISSION 285 

10 that was created for the man. Therefore the woman ought 
to have a symbol of subjection 1 on her head in reverence for 
the angels. 

This subordination is no depreciation of woman. On the woman's 
contrary, her honour lies in its due observance. Man and honour. 
woman are sharers alike in the Lord's grace, and the sacred 
office of motherhood is her supreme service to humanity, cf. 1 Tim, 
Her subordination to man does not mean that she is inferior "' I5 * 
to him, but only that each has a peculiar position in the 
universal economy. She is subordinate to man, even as 
Christ is subordinate to God ; and even as the Son has cf. jo. v. 
equal honour with the Father, so woman has equal honour 23 ' 
with man. 

11 Nevertheless neither is woman apart from man nor man 

12 apart from woman in the Lord. For just as the woman was 
taken out of the man, so also the man is propagated by the 
woman ; but all things spring from God. 



And, further, the Apostle appeals to the instinct of pro- The 

instil 
propriety. 



priety. By almost universal agreement, by that custom I! 



which is ' second nature,' 2 it was recognised as seemly that 
men should crop their hair and women wear theirs long. 3 
Long hair was accounted effeminate foppery in a man, 4 
and short hair was a woman's shame. And what modesty 
demanded before men, reverence demanded in the presence 
of God. 

13 Determine it by your own judgment : is it fitting that a 

14 woman should pray to God unveiled ? Does not Nature 
herself teach you that, if a man have long hair, it is a dishonour 

15 to him ; while, if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, 
because her hair has been given her for a covering ? 

1 ihva-lav, 'a symbol of authority,' i.e., the man's authority over the woman. 
( /jLeruvvfiia frequens Hebraeis, ubi signum rei significatse nomen accipit ' (Grot.). 
The variant Ka\vfj.fxa (cf. Iren. I. i. 16) is an interpretative gloss. The 'veil' was 
the symbol of the 'authority.' 

* Cf. Galen. De Tuend. Val. I. : iiriKTrjToi (pta-eis rd tfdr). 

8 Cf. Plut. Quczst. Rom. 84 : ffwydfoTtpov 51 reus yvvaiQv iyKSKaXv fifxh ais rot? 
$1 dv8pd<riv d/caXuTrrots els rb 5rj/j.6crioy Trpottvcu' Kal yap Trap' "ElWtjgiv, orav 
5v<7Ti>xta rts yiverai, Ketpovai fikv al yvvawes Ko/A&ai 8£ oi dvdpes, tin tojj p.kv rk 
iceLpe<T0ai reus 8k rb Kop.dv <jvvt\Qh icrri. 

4 Cf. Eustath. on Horn. 77. (ill. p. 288) : /c6/xt;»» di ^x etv Ka ^ efoo^ov ehcu 
yvvaiKiKwrepSv iffriv. Mart. Epigr. X. 65. 



286 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Dismissal It were injustice to the Apostle to take his quaint reasoning 
question. h er e as serious argument. He treats those obtrusive women 
with appropriate badinage ; and this appears in his closing 
sentence where he drops the mask of gravity and declines to 
debate the question. All that need be said is that their 
behaviour is a violation of Christian usage as sanctioned by 
the Apostles and observed in all the churches. At the same 
time his condemnation is unqualified and emphatic ; and 
the true reason of his hostility to the innovation lay in the 
moral laxity which prevailed at Corinth and which rendered 
womanly restraint peculiarly expedient. 

16 If, however, any one has a fancy for disputing the question, 
we have no such custom nor have the churches of God. 1 



Profana- The other problem concerned the Sacrament of the Lord's 
Love° fthe Supper, and it had arisen from the association of the holy 
feast. ordinance with the kindly institution of the Love-feast. 2 
The custom was that all should assemble, bringing pro- 
vision according to their ability. The poor brought little 
and the destitute nothing ; but the rich brought much, 
and thus there was no lack. 3 All shared alike, and the 
common meal was sacramental. Sometimes at the close but 
generally at the outset it was sanctified by prayer and the 
breaking of bread in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
' Ere the feast begins,' says Tertullian, ' it is whetted by 
prayer to God ' ; and ' after the communion of the mysteries/ 
says St. Chrysostom, ' they all betook themselves to the 
common banquet.' The Corinthians, however, were sundered 
by fierce animosities, and they introduced their feuds into 
the very Love-feast. Besides their partisanship it appears 
that the spirit of social caste prevailed. The rich disdained 
the poor and would not associate with them. They kept 
apart, and consumed their abundance, regardless of their 
neighbours who had little to eat and drink. It was a hideous 
contrast — here hunger, and there surfeit and drunkenness ; 

1 This is all that the Apostle has to say : the discarding of the veil is contrary 
to Christian usage. Chrys. understands : 'disputation is not our custom.' 
* Cf. p. 37. » Cf. Tert. Apol. 39. 



THE THIRD MISSION 287 

and the Apostle cries shame upon it. If they would have 
revelry, let them have it at home, and not flaunt it in the 
faces of the poor. 

17 But in my next charge I do not commend you, because your 

18 meetings are not for the better but for the worse. For, in the 
first place, 1 at your meetings in Church I hear cleavages exist 

19 among you ; and to some extent I believe it. For there must 
indeed be parties among you that it may become maniiest 

30 who are the men of sterling worth among you. 2 At your 
meetings together, then, there is no possibility of eating the 

21 Lord's Supper. For each of you is in haste to get his own 
supper at the eating ; and one is hungry while another is 

22 drunken. Why, have you not homes to eat and drink in ? 
Or are you despising the Church and shaming the homeless ? 

It was a horrible scandal, and the worst feature of it was The instk 
its desecration of the Holy Supper. In such an assembly ^{J" 
there was nothing sacramental. The Corinthians had Supper. 
assured the Apostle of their remembrance of the traditions 
which he had delivered to them, and in the matter of the 
women's veil he had accepted their assurance and commended 
their loyalty. But here it was impossible for him to commend 
them. Had they remembered the Evangelic Tradition of 
the Institution in the Upper Room, the scandal would never 
have arisen ; and so he reiterates the Tradition and bids them 
henceforth bear it in mind and realise the sacredness of the 
ordinance. 

What am I to say to you ? Shall I commend you ? In this 

23 matter I do not commend you. For I received from the Lord 8 
the tradition which I delivered to you : ' The Lord Jesus, 

24 on the night of His betrayal, took a loaf, and after giving thanks 
He broke it and said : " This is My body sacrificed for you. 

1 irp&Tov //.ev should be balanced by tireira 8£ : 'in the first place cleavages, in 
the next profanation of the Supper.' But the parenthesis (ver. 19) disturbs the 
sequence. 

8 86ki/xol, cf. n. on. 1 Th. v. 21, p. 165. 

3 On the sanctity of the Evangelic Tradition cf. Ths Days of His Flesh, pp. 
xvf. Paul does not mean that his account of the Institution was a special revela- 
tion to himself. He would then probably (cf., however, Lightfoot on Gal. 1. 10) 
have said not air6 but -rrapa rod Kvpiov, since &ir6 denotes merely the source ; while 
irapd implies that the gift is immediate and direct. Thus &irb rlviav \ap.(3avov<rt 
tA?; ; (Mt. xvii. 25), since kings receive tribute through their tax-gatherers. Cf. 
Moulton's Winer, p. 463. 



288 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

25 This do in memory of Me." And so too with the cup at the 
Cf. Ex, close of the Supper. 1 " This cup," He said, " is the New 
xxiv. 8. Covenant sealed with My blood. This do, every time you 

26 drink it, in memory of Me." ' For every time you eat this 
bread and drink this cup, it is the Lord's death that you are 

27 proclaiming until He come. And so whoever eats the bread 
Cf. Heb. or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, will be answerable for 
vi. 6, x. 29. 2g ^ e D0( iy an d blood of the Lord. And let a man prove himself 

29 and thus eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For one who 
eats and drinks brings a judgment on himself by eating and 
drinking, if he does not discern the Body. 2 

a divine Unworthy communication was a fearful sacrilege, bringing 
jU sn heavy condemnation ; and of this evidence was not lacking. 
It seems that in those days Corinth had been visited by a 
pestilence, and the Christians were sharing in the general 
calamity ; and here the Apostle sees a divine judgment. 
It betokened the Lord's displeasure ; yet, he recognises, 
there was mercy in it. For it was no mere judgment ; it 
was a chastisement. Despite their grievous offence the 
Corinthians were God's children, and it was as His children 
Cf. Heb. that He was dealing with them ; ' for what son is there 
whom a father does not chastise ? ' Their affliction was His 
stern call to repentance. 

30 It is for this reason that many among you are weak and sick 

31 and not a few are falling asleep. 3 If we had dealt discerningly 

32 with ourselves, we would not have suffered judgment ; yet in 
suffering the judgment it is chastisement at the Lord's hand 
that we are undergoing, that we may not share the world's 
condemnation. 

The Accordingly he charges them to lay the lesson to heart 

charge? 5 an< ^ realise the ideal of the Love-feast. It was called also 

' the Reception ' ; and this name defined its true character. 

Each guest should be a kindly host. 

33 And so, my brothers, in meeting to eat hospitably receive * 

1 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 446 ; The Feast of the Covenant, p. 16. 

8 Chrys. : tovt€<ttl, ,utj Qerafyv, /xrj ivvoQv, ws XPV> to jxiycdos tuv trpoKeifiivuv, 
p.7} Xoyifi/xevos tov Bynov tt)s dwpeas. 

9 KoifJwvTcu, only of Christian death (cf . pp. 405 f ). 

4 iKdexeade, not 'wait for' but 'receive,' 'hospitably entertain' (cf. Moulton 
and Milligan, Vocab.), as befitted the occasion — a 8oxn or ' Reception' (cf. p. 37). 



THE THIRD MISSION 289 

34 one another. If one be hungry, let him eat at home, that your 
meeting may not bring a judgment upon you. And as for the 
rest of the business, whenever I come, I shall set it in order. 



The next question in the rescript concerned Spiritual 4-. Spiritual 
Gifts ; and the difficulty was occasioned by the presence 1 ls * 
in the Corinthian Church of persons distinguished by special 
endowments. These were known as ' the Spirituals/ * 
and their endowments were designated ' spiritual gifts ' or 
' gifts of grace.' 2 In modern parlance ' a spiritual man ' is 
merely one who is spiritually minded, but in ancient days, 
among Pagans, Jews, and Christians alike, the phrase de- 
noted one possessed by a spirit other than his own, which 
had entered into him and used him as its instrument, operat- 
ing through his various faculties. Hence, since there were 
both good spirits and evil, there were two kinds of possession ; 
and it was not enough that a man should be ' spiritual ' : it 
was necessary, especially in a heathen community, to 
ascertain whether the spirit which inhabited him were an 
evil spirit or the Spirit of God. 

The Apostle furnishes two criteria. The first is sanity, a twofold 
The Greeks had their prophets, their soothsayers and. 
diviners ; and their inspiration was a wild frenzy. The god 
possessed them, and they uttered his oracles, like the 
Pythian prophetess, with streaming hair and foaming lips. 
It was the spirit that spoke, and they knew not what they 
were saying. 3 It was otherwise with the Christian prophet. 
Like his Hebrew prototype, he was not the mouthpiece but 
the messenger of God. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit 
illumined his mind and quickened his vision. ' The spirit xiv. 3s. 
of the prophet was subject to the prophet/ and he declared 
soberly and sanely 4 the revelation vouchsafed to him. 
The second test is the ascription of due honour to Jesus. 
The formula of faith was Jesus is Lord ; and the formula 

1 ol TTPevfxaTiKoi, cf. xiv. 37. 

1 rA irvevp.aTiKa, cf. xiv. I ; x a / 3 W iaTct > cf. xii. 4, 9, 28, 30, 3 1. 

8 Cf. Chrys. In I Ep. ad Cor. Horn. XXIX. I, 2, where he quotes Plat. ApoU 
22 C : &<nrep ol deop.&vTeis nal ol xpV (r f Jil i > ^' Ka ^ Y&P ovroi Xeyovci (xkv iroWa koX 
tcaka, taatri 8t ovStv &v \tyovai. 

4 fjLCTcL Scavotas vr](pov<x7]s /cat cr&<ppovovo"r)S KarcwTdVews (Chrys.). 
T 



2 9 o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

of abjuration, both Jewish and Pagan, Jesus is accursed ; x 
and the Apostle recognises here a test of ' the spirituals/ 
One who confessed the Lordship of Jesus was inspired by the 
Holy Spirit ; and one who denied it in his frenzied ecstasy 
was possessed by an evil spirit. 2 

xii. i Regarding spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not wish you to 

2 ignore the facts. You know that you were once Gentiles, 

3 led blindly away to dumb idols. 3 Wherefore I would have 
you recognise that no one talking in God's Spirit says Jesus 
is accursed ; and no one can say Jesus is Lord unless in 
the Holy Spirit. 

Disparity j^ was no t here, however, that the Corinthian trouble 

of spiritual 

gifts. mainly lay, but m the abundance of the gifts of the Spirit 
and their manifold diversity. Some were high and rare, 
conferring on their possessors a peculiar prestige, while others, 
being lowly and commonplace, were little esteemed ; and 
the disparity had provoked arrogance, rivalry, jealousy, and 
discontent. To this scandal the Apostle addresses himself, 
and he administers a twofold corrective. 

ah equally First he reminds the Corinthians that all spiritual endow- 
ments are gifts of God and operations of His Spirit, and 
therefore all, whether greater or less, are alike sacred. 

4 There are diversities in gifts of grace, but the same Spirit ; 

5 and there are diversities in ministries, and the same Lord ; 

6 and there are diversities in operations, but it is the same God 

7 that in all cases sets all of them in operation. To each is 

8 given the Spirit's manifestation for the general profit. For 
to one through the Spirit is given speech of wisdom ; to 
another speech of knowledge according to the same Spirit ; 4 

1 The test of a Christian in time of persecution was that he should (i) swear by 
the genius of the Emperor {Sfxoaov tjjv Kaiaapos Tvxqv) and (2) curse Christ (\oi5b- 
prjaop rbv Xpicrrdv). Cf. p. 46, n. 2. 

* With St. John at Ephesus, in view of the Doketic heresy of Cerinthus, the 
criterion was recognition of the reality of the Incarnation, the oneness of the human 
Jesus and the Divine Christ (cf. I Jo. iv. 1-3). In the Didache it is the Christ- 
likeness of the prophet's behaviour. Cf. ix : oi ttSLs 5& 6 \a\uv kv icvei/nart, 
irpo<pr)T7]s icrriv, d\\' icLt> %XV T °vs Tpbirovs Kvpiov. 

8 This sentence is manifestly corrupt. For on ore W. H. suggest otl tot£ (cf. 
Eph. ii. 1 1 ) — a simple and satisfactory emendation. 

4 aocpia, knowledge acquired by discursive reasoning; cf. i. 20, 21, where 
ro(pia is heathen philosophy. yvuJatSj knowledge acquired intuitively by per- 
ception of a revelation ; cf. Rom. i. 19, 22, where rb yvwarbv rod Qeov is the 
revelation in Nature which the <ro<poi missed. Hence irpo^reia, tivar-^pia, and 
yvuxxis are coupled (xiii. 2). 



sacred. 



THE THIRD MISSION 291 

9 to his neighbour, in the same Spirit, faith ; to another gifts 

10 of healing, all in the one Spirit ; to another operations of 
miraculous powers ; to another prophecy ; to another dis- 
cernings of spirits ; to another various kinds of tongues ; l 

11 and to another interpretation of tongues. But all these are 
set in operation by the one and self-same Spirit, diversely 
endowing each individual just as He will. 

And, furthermore, not only are all spiritual gifts sacred, ah equaiij 
but all are precious ; all are necessary, the least as well as necessar y- 
the greatest. 

' All service ranks the same with God : 
If now, as formerly he trod 
Paradise, his presence fills 
Our earth, each only as God wills 
Can work — God's puppets, best and worst, 
Are we ; there is no last nor first.' 2 

This lesson the Apostle illustrates and enforces by a parable 
which political philosophers had frequently employed. 3 As 
the latter had represented the State, so he represents the 
Church as a corporate unity. She is the Body of Christ, 
and each Christian is a member. All the members are 
necessary to the body, and the lack of one, even the humblest, 
would involve its mutilation. They all share a common 
life, and if one is injured, its suffering too is common. 

12 For, as the body is one and has many members, while all 
the members of the body, many as they are, are one body, 

13 so also is the Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptised 
into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or 

14 free men, and were all given to drink of one Spirit. For 

15 the body is not one member but many. If the foot say 
' Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' 

16 it does not on this account not belong to the body. And 
if the ear say ' Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to 
the body,' it does not on this account not belong to the body. 

17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing ? 

18 If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling ? But, 
as it is, God has placed the members, each one of them, 

1 E.g., prayer, praise, adoration. Cf. xiv. 15, 16. 

2 Browning, Pippa Passes. 

8 Cf. the famous instance from Plutarch {Cor. 6) in Shak. Cor. I. i. 99 ff. 



292 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

19 m the body as He chose. And if they had all been one 

20 member, where had been the body ? As it is, there are 

21 many members but one body. And the eye cannot say to 
the hand ' I have no need of you,' or again the head to the 

22 feet ' I have no need of you.' No, much rather it is the 
members of the body which are deemed to be naturally 

23 the weaker, that are necessary ; and what we deem the 
more dishonourable members of the body, it is these that 
we invest with a fuller honour, and our unseemly members 

24 have a fuller seemlmess, while our seemly members have 
no need of it. Ay, God blended the body by giving a fuller 

25 honour to the part which lacks it, that there may be no 
cleavage in the body but that the members may be alike 

26 concerned for one another. And if one member suffers, 
all the members suffer with it ; if a member is glorified, all 

27 the members rejoice with it. And you are Christ's Body, 
and its members individually. 

Enumera- The fact, then, is that, just as there are various functions 
spiritual i* 1 * ne body, so there are various ministries in the Church ; 
s ifts - and the Apostle enumerates these. First and supreme is 
Apostleship, which rested on the direct commission of the 
Lord Jesus Christ ; second, Prophecy, which was an inspira- 
tion of the Holy Spirit ; x and third, Teaching, the laborious 
office of conserving and transmitting the Evangelic Tradition, 
the yet unwritten record of the Saviour's earthly ministry. 2 
Besides these there were lesser ministries ; miracle-working, 3 
especially healing in the name of the Lord ; ' helpings ' 4 — the 
relief of the distressed in soul or body ; ' administrations ' — 
the diaconal business of managing the Church's affairs and 
probably also the judicial office in the Christian law-courts ; 5 
and finally ' talking with tongues ' and the companion office 
of their interpretation. All these were distinct gifts of 
grace, and though several might be conjoined, as in the case 
of Paul himself who was an Apostle and also a Prophet and 
a Teacher and a worker of miracles, it was impossible that 
one man should possess them all. And hence it was each 
man's duty to accept the gift which was bestowed upon 
him, whether greater or less, and employ it loyally in the 
service of the Church. 

1 Cf. P . 72. * Cf. p. 80. 8 Cf. p. 35. 

* dvTi\7]PL\p€is, cf. Ac. xx. 35 : dei avTiXafx^dvecrdai twv aedevotivrw. 

* Cf. p. 258. 



THE THIRD MISSION 293 

38 And God has placed us all in the Church — first Apostles, 
second Prophets, third Teachers ; then miraculous powers, 
then gifts of healing, helpings, administrations, various kinds 

29 of tongues. Are all Apostles ? Are all Prophets ? Are all 

30 Teachers ? Have all miraculous powers ? Have all gifts of 

healing ? Do all talk with tongues ? Do all interpret ? 

Yet this in no wise excluded ambition for the higher The 
gifts ; indeed, loyalty lay no less in strenuous qualification v?Iy reign 
of oneself for a higher trust than in faithful exercise of one's 
actual endowments. There was, however, no room for dis- 
content. That was fatal, and there was one sovereign 
remedy for all the ills which were rife in the unhappy Church 
of Corinth. Spiritual gifts are precious, but there is a still 
nobler grace — the grace of Love. Love is best of all — better 
than tongues, better than prophecy, better than revelation, 
better than faith, better than miracles. All these belong 
to the present, and they have no place in Eternity. But 
Love will endure. Without it all spiritual gifts are poor, 
and its presence would banish discontent, strife, and jealousy. 
And so, ere dealing more particularly with the Corinthian 
situation, the Apostle chants a hymn in praise of Love, 
' the Sovereign Way.' x 

31 Strive zealously for the greater gifts of grace ; and 
furthermore I point out to you a sovereign way : 

xiii. 1 If I talk with the tongues of men, ay, and of angels, 2 
Yet have not Love, 
I am become resounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 3 
2 And if I have prophecy 

And be acquainted with all the mysteries and all 
knowledge, 
And if I have all faith, 

Enough to ' remove mountains,' * Cf. Mt. 



XVll. 20. 



1 Cf. St. Thomas a Kempis' praise of Love {De Imit. Chr. III. v. 3-8). 

8 Cf. Test, of Job, xlvii, where Job shows his three daughters his miraculous 
girdle which would carry them into Heaven. When they put it on, the first spoke 
'the angelic dialect' (ayye\li<rj StaX^/cry), the second that of the principalities 
(apx&v), and the third that of the cherubim {tup ev 0\f/ei). 

3 A reference to the noisy instruments — tabrets, cymbals, and rattles — employed 
at heathen festivals. ' A clanging cymbal ' was proverbial. Tiberius used to 
term Apion the grammarian cymbalum mundi (Plin. Nat. Hist. I, Epist. 
Nunc up.). 

4 A proverb of achieving impossibilities. Cf . The Days of His Fleshy p. 397. 



294 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Yet have not Love, 
I am naught. 
3 And if I dole out all my possessions, 

And if I surrender my body to be burned, 1 

Yet have not Love, 
In nothing am I profited. 

4 Love is long-suffering, kind is Love ; 

There is no jealousy in Love, no vaunting, no windy 

5 pride, no unseemliness ; 

Zech. viii. She never seeks her own, is never irritated, 2 never ' reckons 

17 LXX - her ill ' ; 

6 She rejoices not over unrighteousness but rejoices with the 

truth ; 

7 She always keeps counsel, 3 is always trustful, always 

hopeful, always patient. 

8 Love never fails ; 

But if there be prophecies, they will be disused. 
Or tongues, they will cease, 4 
Or knowledge, it will be disused. 

9 For it is but partially that we can know 

And partially that we prophesy ; 
io But when the perfect is come, 
The partial will be disused. 

ii When I was a child, 
I talked as a child, 
I felt as a child, 

1 iva Kavdrjaro(a))/j.aL (cf. Dan. iii. 28 LXX ; Heb. xi. 34 ; Sen. Epist. XI v), the 
traditional fate of Barnabas (cf. p. 118). The variant tva KavxM^IJ-^ (approved 
by W. H.), 'that I may boast,' i.e., in a spirit of ostentation, is probably a 
copyist's emendation in view of the fact that burning was not the actual manner 
of the Apostle's martyrdom ; and it would be facilitated by his fondness for the 
verb tcavxao-dcu (cf. i. 29, 31 ; iii. 21 ; iv. 7). 

8 ofi irapo^vuerai, perhaps a reminiscence of the Trapo^v<r/x6s between Barnabas 
and himself (cf. Ac. xv. 39). 

3 Trdvra areyei, according to the double signification of the verb (cf. n. on 
1 Th. iii. 1, p. 160), either (1) 'is proof against everything/ every annoyance (so 
R.V. marg. 'covereth all things') ; or (2) 'keeps in everything,' never betrays a 
confidence, is not rimosa, 'leaky-minded.' Most probably the latter. Cf. Ecclus. 
viii. 17: /j.€to, fiwpov p\r) crv/x^ovXevov, oi> yhp dw^aerat \6yov ar^ai, 'Take not 
counsel with a fool; for he will not be able to conceal the matter.' Luc. 
JVav. II : Kairot ire\4(rdr]jj.ev ) ws olada, nal ffriyeiv fiefiad-qKafMev, ' we were 
initiated and have learned to keep counsel.' Proverb (cf. Alciphr. Epist, 1. 13) : 
'ApeoTrayirov oreyav&Tepos, 'closer than an Areopagite.' 'Areopagita taciturnior 
dicebatur qui commissum arcanum optime contineret' (Erasm.). 

4 Prophecies and tongues are for the advancement of the Faith, and when it is 
universal (returns iravTaxov diacnrapeiar/s), they will be no longer needed (Chrys.). 



THE THIRD MISSION 295 

I reckoned as a child ; 
But now that I have become a man, 
I have disused childish things. 

13 For meanwhile we look in a mirror and guess at what we 
see, 
But then — face to face ; * 
Meanwhile it is but partially that I can know, 
But then shall I know as fully as I am known. 

13 At present there remain Faith, Hope, Love — these three ; 
But the greatest of these is Love. 

The trouble which had arisen in the Corinthian Church in The gift of 
connection with Spiritual Gifts, had specially to do with ton s ues - 
' the gift of tongues ■ ; and here emerges a problem which is Perplexity 
singularly perplexing, and that for two reasons. One is p r0 bfem : 
that the gift was a temporary phenomenon. It abounded a 
in the Apostolic Church, and it still lingered, on the testimony p™nome? 
of St. Irenaeus, 2 in the second century and revived early in non - 
the third amid the wild excesses of the Montanist prophets ; 8 
but toward the close of the fourth, as St. Chrysostom ex- 
pressly asserts, it had quite vanished, and the Apostle's 
allusions to the Corinthian situation puzzled even that 
master of exegesis. * The whole passage/ he observes, ' is 
exceedingly obscure ; and the obscurity is occasioned by 
our ignorance of the facts and the cessation of happenings 
which were common in those days but unexampled in our 
own.' And, moreover, the evidence of the New Testament 
is extremely bewildering. For one thing, it is surprisingly Meagre- 
meagre. The phenomenon was extensively diffused in evidence^ 
apostolic days, appearing at Jerusalem, at Caesarea Stratonis, Ac.n.1-13; 

x. 46 ; xix. 

1 5i' iaSvTpov, 'in a mirror.' 'According to the popular conception, a man 
looks through a mirror, inasmuch as he imagines that the form he sees is behind 
the mirror' (Moulton's Winer, p. 476). The seen and temporal is only the 

shadow of the Unseen and Eternal, and in our present condition we see only «♦ < 

God's reflection in His works (cf. Rom. i. 20) : even in Christ, ' the Visible 

Image of the Invisible God,' He is 'to our mortal eyes subdued, flesh-veiled.' 

Hereafter, however, we shall see Him 'face t6 face,' 'even as He is' (1 Jo. iii. 2) 

— not His reflection but Himself. Wetstein understands ' through a window of 

dim glass,' quoting the Rabbinical saying: 'All the prophets saw through dim 

glass, but Moses through clear glass ' {Jevam. 49). An attractive interpretation 

but impossible, since ZeoirTpov never means anything but ' a mirror ' (cf . Ja. i. 23). 

2 V. vi. 1. 

■ Tert. Adv. Marc. V. 8; Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 16-19. 



296 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

at Ephesus, and at Corinth ; yet it is mentioned by Luke 
and Paul alone of the sacred writers. 1 Nor is the scantiness 
its incon- of the evidence the sole or the main difficulty. The principal 
sistency. p assa g es are the historian's narrative of the happenings at 
Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost and the Apostle's dis- 
cussion of the Corinthian situation ; and these present widely 
divergent accounts of the nature of the phenomenon. 
Luke's According to the former, it was a miraculous faculty of 

diking 1 : speaking foreign languages ; and this gift was bestowed on 
foreign the Apostles and their companions after their Baptism with 

la.neua.ges. 

Ac ii 4 ^ e Holy Spirit. ' They began to talk with other tongues as 
the Spirit gave them utterance ' ; and the listening multitude, 
representing no fewer than fifteen diverse nationalities, were 
amazed to hear a band of Galileans discoursing in their 
various languages. 

The If this narrative stood alone, there would be little doubt 

notion. what the gift of tongues was : it was a miraculous endow- 
ment, vouchsafed by the Holy Spirit to those who received 
Him, whereby they were able to speak strange languages 
which they had never learned. So it was understood by 
the sacred historian, and his account was generally accepted 
by the Christian Fathers 2 and succeeding interpreters. 
Thus conceiving it, they enlarge upon the practical utility 
and the spiritual significance of the endowment. It was, 
they represent, no small furtherance of the Gospel that its 
first preachers were able, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, 
to proclaim it to all nations in their own native languages. 
And it served, moreover, as a prophecy of the unity of the 
Catholic Church, the gathering together of the scattered 
children of God into one family. It was indeed nothing 

Cf. Gen. xi. less than the undoing of the ancient curse of Babel. ' The 
punishment of tongues,' says Hugo Grotius, ' scattered men 
abroad ; the gift of tongues regathered the scattered into 
one people.' 

1 The promise that after His departure His disciples would 'talk with new 
tongues ' is ascribed to our Lord in the spurious conclusion of the Second Gospel 
(Mk. xvi. 17). 

2 Cf. Orig. In Efiist. ad Rom. r. 13 ; Chrys. In I Efiist. ad Cor. Horn. xxix. I ; 
Aug. Enarr. in Ps. xvm. 10, De Civ. Dei, xvin. 1 ; Ambrstr. on 1 Cor. 
xiv. 14. 



THE THIRD MISSION 297 

This, however, is a doubtful representation, and even iriitsunten 

the historian's narrative evidences of its untenability are a : lty ' 
not lacking. First, that multitude of strangers in Jerusalem 
at the Feast of Pentecost was composed of Hellenists, devout 
Jews who had come to worship in the Holy City ; and they 
had no need to be addressed in the languages of their 
adopted countries. They would probably understand 
Aramaic, and they would certainly understand the Common 
Greek, the lingua franca of that period. 1 Hence, if the gift 
of tongues was a linguistic endowment, it was, so far as they 
were concerned, an unnecessary miracle. And again, it is 
difficult to conceive how that promiscuous multitude could 
have been addressed simultaneously in so many languages. 
There is no indication that the various nationalities formed 
distinct groups, and the speech of one nationality would have 
been unintelligible to all the others. There seems no 
evasion of the difficulty save the theory of St. Gregory of 
Nazianzus 2 that it was a miracle not of speech but of hearing. 
The Apostles spoke in their own language, and by the grace 
of the Holy Spirit their discourse was intelligible to all their 
diverse audience. So the legend has it that the Spanish 
missionary, St. Vincent Ferrer, was understood by Greeks, 
Germans, Sardinians, Hungarians, and other races when he 
preached to them in Latin or in his mother-tongue as spoken 
at Valentia. 3 It is, moreover, significant that, on the 
historian's testimony, the preaching of the Apostles on the 
Dny of Pentecost occasioned not merely perplexity but 
mockery. It seemed to some of their hearers that they were 
intoxicated ; and this suspicion could hardly have arisen had 
they merely talked in foreign languages. It would indeed 
have been natural that their audience should marvel at their 
proficiency, but it would have been impossible to mistake 
their speech for drunken babbling. What was unintelligible 
to one would have been intelligible to others by his side. 
And, finally, when Peter addressed the astonished assemblage, 
what was his explanation of the miracle ? He declared it a 
fulfilment of the ancient prophecy : ' I will pour forth of My Joel w zi 
Spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall 32 " 

1 Cf. p. 7. a Orat. xli. 15. 

8 Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, Apr. 5. 



298 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your 
old men shall dream dreams/ This defines the phenomenon : 
it was not talking foreign languages ; it was prophecy — 
revelation and ecstasy. 1 

Paul's And this accords with our Apostle's references to the 

account, situation at Corinth. Here there is no suggestion of speaking 
foreign languages ; indeed the idea is positively precluded. 

i cor. xiv. When languages are in question, they are termed ' voices.' 
The word ' tongue ' had been appropriated to a special use, 
and another was required. Again, the Apostle's phrase is 
' talking with a tongue ' or ' with tongues,' and the historian 

Ac ii. 4. had to amplify this into ' talking with other tongues ' in order 
to express the idea of ' talking in foreign languages ' as 

Vd 6, xi. distinguished from ' talking in one's own dialect ' or ' tongue.' 
Moreover, the purpose of the gift of tongues, according to 
the historian, was to render the message intelligible to the 
audience, and there was no such necessity at Corinth. There 
indeed the gift of tongues rendered the speakers unintelligible. 
They needed an interpreter, and his qualification was not 
knowledge of foreign languages but spiritual understanding. 

cf. xii. 30. Interpretation was not a natural acquirement but a spiritual 
gift. 

The basis This representation must be unreservedly accepted. Not 

gatk>n! Sl1 ' onr y was it written earlier, but Paul had personal contact 
with the phenomenon ; and his account of it is uninten- 
tionally corroborated by the inherent inconsistency of the 
historian's narrative. The latter's misconception of the 
gift of tongues evinces how short-lived the phenomenon was. 
Though it lingered here and there for generations, it was 
generally no more than a vague memory ere the close of the 
first century. Its entire disappearance in St. Chrysostom's 
day rendered it obscure to that master of sacred interpreta- 
tion ; and perhaps our best advantage over him and his 

1 It in no wise impairs the historical trustworthiness of the Book of Acts that 
It represents the 'tongues' as foreign languages, since this was apparently the 
prevailing belief, shared even by the gifted persons themselves. At all events it 
was the idea of the Irvingite prophets. ' Mary Campbell herself expressed her 
conviction that the tongue given to her was that of the Pelew Islands, which, 
indeed, was a safe statement, and little likely to be authoritatively disputed : 
while some other conjectures pointed to the Turkish and Chinese languages at 
those thus miraculously bestowed' (Oliphant's Life of Edward Irving, p. 328). 



THET THIRD MISSION 299 

contemporaries lies in the recognition of the fact that the 
Pauline references are the surest data for investigation. At 
the same time we have this further advantage that, since 
St. Chrysostom's day, the phenomenon has occasionally 
reappeared ; and consideration of these more recent mani- 
festations is helpful toward a just solution of the problem. 

The most striking instances of the gift of tongues in modern Modem 
times are ' the little prophets of the Cevennes ' at the close of Segiftof 
the seventeenth century and the Irvingites early in the ton s ue s. 
nineteenth ; and it is remarkable that these exhibited 
respectively the phenomenon of the Day of Pentecost as 
portrayed in the Book of Acts and the ecstasies which con- 
vulsed the Corinthian Church. 

The story in the former instance is that among the perse- - The little 
cuted Huguenots who found an asylum amid the mountains of of° t £e ets 
the Cevennes after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Cevennes.' 
the spiritual gifts of the Apostolic Church reappeared — 
miracles of healing, prophecy, and talking with tongues. 
The last was bestowed mainly on young children, who were 
stricken with convulsions rendering them insensible to pain. 
During their seizures they preached and exhorted, not in the 
Romance patois of their native mountains, but in good 
French. 1 This instance, however, is hardly apposite. 
French was no strange language to the ' little prophets.' 
Their patois was indeed their habitual language, but French 
was the language of the Huguenot Bible and of Huguenot 
devotion ; and their exhortations were probably nothing else 
than passages of Scripture and of sermons. Nor is their 
repetition of these psychologically inexplicable. The words 
which they had heard and forgotten, lay dormant in their 
' subliminal consciousness ' and awakened when their ' supra- 
liminal consciousness ' was paralysed by sickness. It is a 
like phenomenon when the forgotten but imperishable past 
recurs in seasons of mental aberration and is uttered in 
ravings. Coleridge furnishes a remarkable instance in the 
case of a young woman some five and twenty years of age 
and quite illiterate, unable either to read or to write, who, 
in the delirium of a nervous fever, poured forth Hebrew and 

1 Cf. Heath in Contemf. Rev. % Jan. 1886 ; Erue) 7 , Histoire du fanatisms % 
i. pp. 148 ff. 



300 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Greek and Latin in a pompous tone and with such distinct 
and accurate enunciation that pages of her utterances were 
taken down. The explanation subsequently emerged. She 
had been for several years in the service of a clergyman who 
was accustomed to pace to and fro in a corridor adjoining 
the kitchen reciting favourite passages of the Scriptures and 
the Fathers. 
The The movement associated with the name of Edward 

movement. I rvm g na -d its origin on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. 
It too was a revival of the spiritual gifts which abounded in 
the Apostolic Church, and it began simultaneously, in the 
month of March 1830, in two humble dwellings — the 
cottage of Fernicarry at the head of the Gareloch, where 
Mary Campbell, a young woman of saintly character, lay 
wasting with consumption ; and the home of two unlearned 
but devout brothers, James and George Macdonald, at Port- 
Glasgow on the other side of the Firth. It was a time of 
spiritual awakening and unrest. A persuasion of the im- 
minence of Christ's Return to establish His Millennial Reign 
had taken possession of a group of prophetic enthusiasts, 
and had been widely diffused by the apostolic zeal of their 
leader, Edward Irving ; and it was believed that the con- 
summation would be heralded by a recurrence of the spiritual 
gifts which had accompanied His First Advent. The wild 
The gift of hope had reached the peaceful shores of the Gareloch ; and 
tongues. one s un( } a y evening a company of friends had gathered round 
Mary Campbell's couch and were praying for the restoration 
of the gifts, when suddenly she received the gift of tongues and 
' broke forth in loud, ecstatic utterances/ continuing for 
upwards of an hour. 
ihe gift of It was the gift of healing that was first bestowed on the 
eamg ' Macdonalds. Their sister was lying sick, and she prayed 
for the Baptism of the Spirit. Her request was granted : 
her weakness was forgotten, and for several hours she poured 
forth her soul in praise, prayer, and exhortation. She 
interceded for her brother James, that he too might be 
endued with power from on high. This request also was 
granted, and at his command she arose from her couch, 
healed of her sickness. He wrote to Mary Campbell, inform- 
ing her what the Lord had done and charging her also to 



THE THIRD MISSION 301 

' rise up and walk.' She obeyed ; her disease left her ; the 
gift of tongues remained with her, and she entered on the 
career of an inspired prophetess. 

The gifts, especially prophecy and tongues, continued and Erskine of 
increased ; and the fame of so marvellous a manifestation testimony. 3 
spread abroad and the two dwellings were frequented by 
curious visitors from near and far. One of these was the wise 
and saintly Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, who after so- 
journing six weeks with the Macdonalds published this 
testimony : ' Whilst I see nothing in Scripture against the 
reappearance, or rather the continuance, of miraculous gifts 
in the Church, but a great deal for it, I must further say that 
I see a great deal of internal evidence in the west country 
to prove their genuine miraculous character, especially in the 
speaking with tongues. . . . After witnessing what I have 
witnessed among these people, I cannot think of any person 
decidedly condemning them as impostors, without a feeling 
of great alarm. It is certainly not a thing to be lightly or 
rashly believed, but neither is it a thing to be lightly or 
rashly rejected. I believe that it is of God.' * 

It is the gift of tongues that is our immediate concern, Nature of 
and the accounts which Erskine and other witnesses have Jongues?*" 
left, are very instructive. Three facts emerge. (1) The (1) Actual 
experience was regarded by the subjects as an actual pos- s ion/ es " 
session. ' They declare,' wrote a London solicitor, who 
visited Port-Glasgow to investigate the phenomenon, 2 
' that their organs of speech are made use of by the Spirit 
of God ; and that they utter that which is given them, and 
not the expressions of their own conceptions, or their own 
intention.' ' The voices,' says Erskine, 3 ' struck me very 
much, perhaps more than the tongues. It was not their 
loudness, although they were very loud, but they did not 
sound to me as if they were the voices of the persons speaking ; 
they seemed to be uttered through them by another power.' 
(2) The tongues were not mere babbling. ' The languages,' (2) a true 
says Erskine, 4 'are distinct, well-inflected, well-compacted language " 
languages ; they are not random collections of sounds ; they are 
composed of words of various length, with the natural variety, 

1 Erskine, Letters, pp. 182 flf, 2 Ibid., p. 181. 

* Ibid., p. 186. * Ibid., Appendix vin, pp. 392 f. 



302 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

and yet possessing that commonness of character which 
marks them to be one distinct language. I have heard many 
people speak gibberish, but this is not gibberish, it is decidedly 
well-compacted language.' Specimens have been preserved 
as they were written down by hearers, and one of these runs : 
' O Pinitos, Elelastino Halimangotos Dantita, Hampooteni, 
(3) Unin- Farini, Aristos, Ekampros.' (3) The tongues were unintelli- 
evelfto^he gible to the speakers unless the additional gift of interpretation 
\uthout S in- was voucnsa fed. Erskine relates how on one occasion, after 
terpreta- James Macdonald ' had prayed a considerable time, first in 
English and then in a tongue, the command to pray for an 
interpretation was brought to his mind, and he repeated 
" It is written, ' Let him that speaketh in a tongue pray that 
he may interpret.' " He then prayed for interpretation 
with great urgency, until he felt that he had secured the 
answer, and when repeating over the concluding words of 
what he had spoken in the tongue, which were " disco capito," 
he said, " And this is the interpretation : the shout of a 
King is among them." ' * 
similarity Precisely these are the characteristics of this singular 
Corinthian phenomenon as it presented itself in the Corinthian Church. 
tongues. j^s reality is attested by its persistence and its spontaneous 
recurrence in seasons of spiritual excitation ; and the ques- 
tion is whether it be possible to ascertain its actual nature 
and define the principles underlying it. 
The gift of It is an illuminating fact that the gift of tongues was 
and P the°gift closely related to the gift of prophecy, and both were con- 

of tongues. 

1 Ibid., p. 186. The gift of tongues is claimed by 'the Pentecostal Brethren,' 
and this testimony has been communicated by a Welsh correspondent (April 10, 
191 1): 'I have recently heard "the gift of tongues"; and some time ago in 
Swansea Pentecostal Brethren from Bournemouth held special meetings. They 
claim to speak and pray in ' ' unknown tongues. " During the meeting I heard 
several of the congregation pray, with the "gift of tongues," in a language un- 
known to themselves ; but, as soon as they ceased praying thus, one of the Pente- 
costals interpreted. I have heard even some Welshmen in my own district speak 
with "the gift of tongues." One friend of mine, a Welshman, said that he went 
to his room one afternoon to pray for a special blessing, and the blessing asked for 
was "the gift of tongues." Before leaving the room he had the "gift." I have 
heard the strange language, the pronunciation similar to this: — " Sacra cava vie 
a prori prori prori, etc." This friend told me there was no connection whatever 
between him and the " Pentecostals," and I have every reason to believe his 
statements.' 



THE THIRD MISSION 303 

comitants of the Baptism of the Spirit. ' When Paul had Ac. xix. 6; 
laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and c ' x ' 44 ' 4 ' 
they began to talk with tongues and to prophesy.' And what 
was the difference between prophesying and talking with 
tongues ? It was a difference not of kind but of degree. 
In its scriptural sense prophecy was not prediction. It was 
the proclamation of a divine message, the telling of a vision, 
the glowing testimony of a heart moved by the Holy Spirit. 
' One who prophesies/ says the Apostle, ' talks to men 1 Cor. xiv. 
edification and encouragement and consolation.' A ' teacher ' 3 * 
repeated and expounded the sacred tradition ; x a ' prophet ' 
uttered a revelation, he preached the word which God had 
spoken to his own soul. Prophecy was a rapturous out- 
pouring of mingled exhortation, adoration, prayer, and 
praise ; and it would frequently happen that the prophet 
was overwhelmed by the fulness of his vision of God. The 
glory was ineffable ; language failed him, and, like the 
Apostle, he could utter nothing but ' inarticulate groanings.' Rom. via. 
This was ' talking with tongues ' — the crying of a surcharged 2 
soul. 2 And here lies the difference between ' prophesying ' 
and ' talking with tongues.' Both were the utterance of 
souls possessed by the Holy Spirit, but in the one case 
the language was intelligible, in the other it was unintelligible. 

[ Talking with tongues ' was an actual experience, and the Abuse of 
Apostle knew it well. ' Thank God,' he says, ' I talk with g?fts. ua 
tongues more than any of you.' It was not the experience \ 8 f or ' X1V 
that was objectionable in his eyes and that created the 
scandal at Corinth ; it was the abuse of it. His attitude is 
identical with that of Erskine of Linlathen. Erskine was 
profoundly impressed by the revival of spiritual gifts in his 
day. In its initial stage he recognised it as indubitably a 
divine operation. Yet he never identified himself with the 
movement. He maintained an attitude of critical though 

1 a. p. 80. 

* ' Most frequently,' says Irving (Oliphant's Life, p. 329), 'the silence is broken 
by utterance in a tongue, and this continues for a longer or a shorter period, some- 
times occupying only a few words, as it were filling the first gust of sound ; some- 
times extending to five minutes, or even more, of earnest and deeply-felt discourse, 
with which the heart and soul of the speaker is manifestly much moved to tears, 
and sighs, and unutterable groanings, to joy, and mirth, and exultation, and even 
laughter of the heart' 



304 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

reverent observation ; and while he never questioned the 
possibility or the desirability of the restoration of spiritual 
gifts to the Church, yet in view of subsequent developments, 
especially in the community which gathered round Edward 
Irving, he saw reason to revise his judgment of the actual 
situation. ' We have had great trial/ he wrote at the 
beginning of the year 1834, 1 ' about the spiritual gifts. The 
spirit which has been manifested has not been a spirit of 
union, but of discord. I do not believe that the introduction 
of these gifts, whatever they may be, has been to draw men 
simply to God. I think the effect has rather been to lead 
men to take God, as it were, on trust from others ; to be 
satisfied with God having declared something to another, 
and not to expect the true fulfilment of the promise, " They 
shall all be taught of the Lord." ' ' God,' he had written a 
month previously, 2 ' is our all, and having God, we have lost 
nothing. These gifts are but signs and means of grace ; they 
are not grounds of confidence ; they are not necessarily 
intercourse with God ; they are not holiness, nor love, nor 
patience ; they are not Jesus. But surely they shall yet 
appear, when God has prepared men to receive them.' 
Prophecy Precisely similar was the situation which had emerged 

the best 

gift. at Corinth. Emulation had created discord ; and the reason 

was that in their zeal for gifts of grace the Corinthians had 
forgotten the highest gift of all — the grace of Love. And 
so the Apostle recalls them to this sovereign way. It would 
not lessen their zeal for spiritual gifts ; it would rather aid 
them in attaining these. And so in counselling them to 
pursue Love he bids them also not only strive for spiritual 
gifts but strive for the highest within their reach. And that 

cf. xH. 28. was the gift .of Prophecy. There was indeed, according to 
the Apostle's classification, one still higher — the grace of 
Apostleship ; but it was a divine vocation beyond the grasp 
of human ambition, and the gift of Prophecy was the loftiest 
goal of legitimate aspiration. 

xiv. 1 Pursue Love ; but strive zealously for spiritual gifts, 
most of all that you may prophesy. 

Limitation And now he proceeds to deal with that troublous business 

1 Letters, p. 206. * IMd., p. 204. 



THE THIRD MISSION 305 

—'talking with tongues.' It was a phase of the gift of of the gift 
Prophecy. It was prophetic rapture, and it was indeed a ° tongu< 
sacred and solemn experience to be highly and reverently 
prized. Yet it was subject to this practical limitation, that 
it was talking to God, and it was unintelligible to men, and 
thus it could not serve that precious use of Prophecy — the 
edification of the Church. And therefore Prophecy was 
a better gift and more to be desired. 

9 For one who talks with a tongue talks not to men but to 
God ; for no one understands, 1 but in spirit he talks mysteries ; 

3 whereas one who prophesies talks to men edification and 

4 encouragement and consolation. One who talks with a 
tongue edifies himself ; whereas one who prophesies edifies 

5 the Church. I wish you all talked with tongues, but most of 
all that you should prophesy. Greater is one who prophesies 
than one who talks with tongues, unless it be that he interprets, 
that the Church may receive edification. 

Edification is the supreme end of public worship, and its Futility of 
essential condition is intelligibility. The end was served by gjjjj"^ 111 " 
the presentation of a revelation and the knowledge which it speech. 
supplied, or by prophecy, or by a Teacher's repetition of the 
Evangelic Tradition ; but what profit could accrue from 
listening to ' inarticulate groanings ' ? These were indeed 
a language, but the meaning was hidden from the hearers. 
The ecstatic outpouring might be, as Edward Irving claimed, 2 
no ' unmeaning gibberish, as the thoughtless and heedless 
sons of Belial have said,' but ' regularly formed, well-pro- 
portioned, deeply-felt discourse, which evidently wanteth 
only the ear of him whose native tongue it is, to make it a very 
masterpiece of powerful speech ' ; yet, so long as that ear 
was wanting, it was, for practical purposes, no better than 
a foreign language, and it remained unprofitable though it 
were ' the tongue of the angels.' xiii - «• 

6 This being so, brothers, what shall I profit you if I come to 
you talking with tongues and do not talk to you in the way of 
revelation or of knowledge 3 or of prophecy or of teaching ? 

7 In the case of mere lifeless instruments giving sound — say a 

1 dxovet, cf. Dt. xxviii. 49 LXX : $9vos 6 oi/K aKotitxrt tt}s (pwvijs airov, 
a Life, p. 329. $ Cf. n. on xii. & 

U 



3 o6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

flute or a harp — if they give no distinction in their notes, how 
will it be recognised what it is that is being played on either ? 

8 Ay, and if a trumpet give an uncertain sound, who will prepare 

9 for war ? So with you also in using the tongue, if you give 
unintelligible speech, how will it be recognised what it is that 

Cf. ix. 26. 10 you are talking ? You will be talking ' into the air.' There 
are, it may be, such and such a number of different languages 

11 in the world, and nothing lacks a language. If, then, I do 
not know the force of the language, I shall be to the man who 
is talking it a foreigner, and the man who is talking it will be a 

12 foreigner in my esteem. So with you also, since you are 
striving so zealously for spirits, let it be for the Church's 
edification that you seek to abound in them. 



No 'speak- The remedy was that the gift of tongues should never 
tongues* be exercised in public assembly without interpretation. 
into-preta- ^his was a -distinct gift. Sometimes it accompanied the 
tion. gift of tongues, and then, when his ecstasy passed, the 
enthusiast could explain the significance of his inspired 
utterances. But sometimes he lacked it, and then, unless 
one who possessed it were present to interpret them, they 
remained unintelligible to speaker and hearers alike. What 
was this gift of interpretation if the tongues were not, as they 
were popularly conceived, unknown languages ? Articulate 
speech is not the sole language. It is man's peculiar gift, 
distinguishing him from the rest of the animals, which 
express their emotions by inarticulate cries. These cries, 
however, are also a language, and each has its proper signifi- 
cance. ' With the domesticated dog,' says Darwin, 1 ' we 
have the bark of eagerness, as in the chase ; that of anger, 
as well as growling ; the yelp or howl of despair, as when 
shut up ; the baying at night ; the bark of joy, as when 
starting on a walk with his master ; and the very distinct 
one of demand or supplication, as when wishing for a door or 
window to be opened/ And, besides the articulate speech 
which is his normal mode of expression, man, in certain 
moods, ' uses, in common with the lower animals, inarticulate 
cries to express his meaning, aided by gestures and move- 
ments of the muscles of the face. This especially holds good 
with the more simple and vivid feelings, which are but little 



1 TK* Decent tf Man, I. ill 



THE THIRD MISSION 307 

connected with our higher intelligence. Our cri©6 of pain, 
fear, surprise, anger, together with their appropriate actions, 
and the murmur of a mother to her beloved child, are more 
expressive than any words.' Such cries were the ' inarticu- 
late groanings ' of the enthusiasts, and they were a language. 
They expressed distinct emotions — prayer, praise, adoration, 
thankfulness ; and, meaningless as they were to others, they 
were intelligible to one who shared the emotions which 
prompted them. The spiritual expert understood the 
language of the spirit. He had ' the gift of interpretation.' 

13 Wherefore let one who talks with a tongue pray that he 

14 may interpret. For, if I pray with a tongue, my spirit 

15 prays but my mind is barren. What follows, then ? I 
will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind 
also ; I will praise with my spirit, but I will praise with my 

16 mind also. Else, if you bless with spirit only, how shall 
one who fills the place of the plain man 1 say the Amen at 
your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are 

17 saying ? Your thanksgiving indeed is beautiful, but your 

18 neighbour is not edified. Thank God, I talk with tongues 

19 more than any of you ; yet in Church I had rather talk five 
words with my mind, so as to lodge them in the memories 
of others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue. 

And now he appeals to the good sense of the Corinthians. An appeal 
Was there not something childish in those unintelligible t S g t J° od 
raptures ? What end did they serve ? They availed 
neither for conversion nor for edification. There was a 
lesson for the Church in the ancient Scriptures. Long ago, 
when the scornful men of Jerusalem scoffed at the simplicity 
of his message, the Prophet had warned them that the Lord 
would address them after another fashion. The Assyrians 
would invade Jerusalem, and she would hear their foreign 
tongue. It was because they would not hearken to His 
gracious Word that the Lord had spoken to His people in a 
language which they could not understand ; and so, argues 
the Apostle, was it still. There was no grace in those unin- 
telligible tongues of which the Corinthians were so proud, 

1 6 LSubrTjSf * the plain man ' as distinguished from ' the expert,' 6 t^x^V ^X^'i 
whatever his rix vr l — the statesman, the physician, the poet, the soldier, the 
churchman. Precisely equivalent to 'layman' in its old use. Cf. Sir Philip 
Sidne/, Sonmt 74. 



308 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

They neither edified believers, as prophecy did ; nor did they, 
like prophecy, convert unbelievers, though they might make 
the latter wonder and scoff. 

30 Brothers, do not prove children in your wits. No, in evil 

a i be very babes, but in your wits prove full-grown men. It is 

is. xxviii. written in the Law : ' By men of strange tongues and by lips 

"» I2, of strangers will I talk to this people, and not even thus will 

22 they hearken to Me, saith the Lord.' * And so tongues serve 
as a sign not for those who hold the Faith but for strangers 
to it ; whereas prophecy serves not for strangers to the Faith 

23 but for those who hold it. If, then, the whole Church assemble 
together and all talk with tongues, and there enter plain men 
or strangers to the Faith, will they not say that you are mad ? 

34 But if all prophesy and there enter a stranger to the Faith or 

35 a plain man, he is convicted by all, he is examined by all, the 
secrets of his heart become manifest ; and so he will fall on his 

is. xiv. 14. face and worship God, proclaiming that ' God is indeed among 
you.' 



regulation 



a practical And so the Apostle lays down a practical rule. The plague 
of the Corinthian Church was the profusion of its spiritual 
gifts. At each meeting so many were eager to bear a part. 
One would lead in a psalm of praise, another would recite 
a lesson from the Evangelic Tradition, another had a revela- 
tion to communicate, another would break out with a tongue, 
while another would furnish the interpretation. It was a 
scene of wild and unedifying confusion. The worst disorder 
was occasioned by talking with tongues, and when several 
enthusiasts talked simultaneously, it was a very babel. 
And so for the regulation of this exuberant gift the Apostle 
enjoins that it should never be exercised without interpreta- 
tion : where there was no interpreter, there should be no 
talking with tongues. And in any case it should be exercised 
sparingly— -twice or, at the utmost, thrice at a single meeting, 
and always one at a time. 

36 What follows, then, brothers ? Whenever you assemble, 
each has a psalm, has a lesson, has a revelation, has a tongue, 
has an interpretation : let everything be done with a view to 

37 edification. In the case of talking with a tongue : let two or, 

1 Not the LXX rendering, which is here very erroneous. Origen {Pkiloc, IX. 9) 
*ays he had found the equivalent of the Apostle's rendering in Aquila's Vtrsion. 



THE THIRD MISSION 309 

at the most, three talk at one meeting, and each in turn ; and 
a8let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let the man 
keep silence in Church, and talk to himself and to God. 

The Apostle is here content with imposing these stringent Regulation 
limitations on the exercise of the gift of tongues, but it would phecy. 
seem that ere long, like Erskine of Linlathen, he adopted a 
less tolerant attitude and absolutely discountenanced it. 
At all events ' talking with tongues ' has no place in his cf. Rom. 
subsequent enumerations of spiritual gifts. Meanwhile he Eph. iv! 
allows that it is indeed a divine endowment, but he pro- 1X > i2 
nounces the gift of Prophecy better, inasmuch as it served the 
grand use of spiritual edification. Yet even the gift of 
Prophecy was liable to abuse, and apparently it was doubly 
abused at Corinth. It fostered spiritual pride and self- 
deception. The former displayed itself in the eagerness of 
the Prophets to thrust themselves forward and proclaim 
their revelations. Several would rise simultaneously and 
endeavour to speak each other down. Their inspiration was 
their pretext: they must utter the divine message. And 
the result was disorder and strife. Moreover, they were prone 
to self-deception. Erskine tells how on two occasions he 
heard James Macdonald prophesy with remarkable power, 
and afterwards ' discovered the seed of his utterances in the 
newspapers.' x It was not imposture ; it was self-deception. 
What he had read had lodged in his mind, and he had brooded 
over it until at length he mistook it for a revelation. ' I thus 
see,' remarks Erskine, ' how things may come into the mind 
and remain there, and then come forth as supernatural 
utterances, although their origin be quite natural.' It 
appears that similar deceptions had chanced at Corinth, 
demonstrating the necessity of ' discerning ' the prophetic 
spirits. 2 

29 And as for Prophets : ?et two or three talk, and let the 

30 others discern. And if a revelation be made to another sitting 

31 by, let the first keep silence. For you can all prophesy one 

1 Letters, p. 209. Several of Irving's followers ultimately recognised and con- 
fessed that their inspiration had been a delusion. Cf. Life, pp. 323, 357 f., 364. 

' Irving's test of the prophets was twofold : ' blameless walk and conversation ' 
and ' nothing contrary to sound doctrine, but everything for edification, exhorta* 
tion, and comfort' {Life, p. 319). 



310 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

3* by one, that all may learn and all be encouraged. And Pro- 

33 phets' spirits are subject to the Prophets ; tor God is not 
a God of disorder but a God of peace, as He is in all the 
churches of His saints. 1 

women Here arose the question of the legitimacy of women 

prop esy- p r0 p] ieS yi n g > There had been prophetesses in ancient Israel, 
and there were prophetesses also in the Apostolic Church like 

Ac. xxi. 9. the four daughters of Philip the Evangelist. The gift was a 
divine endowment, and its possession attested its legitimacy; 

Gai. iii. 28. and Paul, recognising as he did the oneness of male and female 
in Christ Jesus, would have been the last to ' make channels 
for God's Spirit, as men make channels for the water-courses, 
and say, " Flow here, but flow not there/' ' He acknow- 
ledged the legitimacy of women prophesying, but in view of 
the scandals which he has already censured in dealing with 
the question of the veil, 2 he prohibits them from public 
exercise of the gift. 

34 Let the women keep silence in the Churches ; for it is not 
Cf. Gen. permitted them to talk. No, let them be subject, as the Law 
lii l6 - 35 also says. And if they wish to learn anything, let them 

question their own husbands at home. For it is disgraceful 
for a woman to talk in Church. 

Catholic The Apostle knew by experience how wilful the Corinthians 
c?!? 16. were, and he reminds them once more of the deference due 
to catholic custom. The Corinthian Church was not Christen- 
dom but merely a Christian community, and they had no 
right to practise innovations at their own discretion. They 
must reverence the Lord's authority and the consensus 
fidelium. 

36 Was it from you that the Word of God went forth, or did 

37 it reach to you alone ? If any one fancies he is a prophet or 
a spiritual, let him fully recognise that what I am writing to 

38 you is the Lord's commandment ; and if any one ignores it, 
he is to be ignored. 3 

1 This last clause is otherwise construed (1) with ver. 31, vers. 32, 330 being 
parenthetical (W. H.) ; (2) with ver. 34 (Tisch.) — 'as in all the churches of the 
saints, let the woman keep silence in your churches.' 

1 Cf. p. 282. 

* d-yvoeiTcu, pres. (cf. Mt. xxiv. 40, xxvL 2), 'this is his doom — to be ignored.' 
For the variant Ayvoclrw, 'if anyone ignores it, let him ignore It,' cf. vii. 1 5 ; 
Rev. xxii. 11. 



THE THIRD MISSION 311 

39 And so, my brothers, be zealous for prophesying and do 

40 not hinder talking with tongues ; but let everything be done 
in a seemly and orderly fashion. 

The next question which the Corinthian rescript submitted s . The 
concerned the resurrection of the body ; and it is not sur- [^n 1 ™* 
prising that this problem should have been debated in a oft j ie 
Gentile community. The constant burden of the Apostle's 
preaching was twofold : the Lord's Death and His Resur- cf. Ac. 
rection with its corollary, the resurrection of believers ; and XV11, 3 ' 
while the former presented a special difficulty to Jewish 
minds with their secular ideal of the Messiah as a victorious cf. 1 Cor. 
King, it was the latter that chiefly offended the philosophic l * 23< 
Greeks. To the Apostle's audience in the Court of the Ac. xvii. 
Areiopagos it had seemed a grotesque impossibility, and it 32, 
had been greeted with contemptuous ridicule ; and a like 
sentiment prevailed at Corinth. It was a postulate of 
ancient philosophy that matter is essentially and necessarily 
evil ; and hence impurity is inseparable from our present 
condition. The mortal body is the prison-house of the im- 
mortal spirit, and only when it attains disembodiment will 
the latter escape corruption. Meanwhile impurity is inevit- 
able, and it has no moral significance. The Apostle had 
dealt with this mischievous theory in his first letter. 1 He had x cor. vi 
insisted on the sanctification of soul and bod}' alike, since I2 " 2 °- 
the body is no perishing vesture one day to be cast aside. 
It was worn by the Lord in the days of His flesh, and even 
as His body was raised by the power of God, so will ours. 

His doctrine had excited a lively controversy in the Corin- The 
thian Church. The idea of the resurrection of the body ^0^0!^ 
presented insuperable difficulties to the Greek intellect, and Lord - 
these were submitted to the Apostle. It was indeed a pro- 
found problem, and his argument ranks as his noblest achieve- 
ment. It is a truly prophetic vision, and the subsequent 
progress of human thought has only served to illumine it and 
discover more of its inexhaustible fulness. He begins with 
a reaffirmation of the historic fact of the Resurrection of the 
Lord and a repetition of the Evangelic Tradition which he 
had already delivered to the Corinthian Church—the eye- 

1 Cf. p. 236. 



3 i2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

witnesses' testimonies to the manifestations of the Risen 
Lord during the forty days betwixt His Resurrection and 
His Ascension, 1 besides his personal testimony to the mani- 
festation which had been vouchsafed to himself on the road 
to Damascus. 

xv. i I recall to you, brothers, the Gospel which I preached 
to you, which also you received, in which also you stand 

2 firm, through which also you are being saved — the very 
terms in which I preached it to you, presuming you hold it 

3 fast — unless it be that your faith was all to no purpose. I 
delivered to you primarily 2 the tradition which I had also 
received : Christ died for our sins according to the Scrip- 

4 tures, and He was buried, and He has been raised 8 on the 

5 third day according to the Scriptures ; and He appeared 

6 to Cephas, then to the Twelve ; next He appeared to 
upwards of five hundred brothers all at once, of whom 
the greater number remain to this day while some have 

7 gone to their rest ; next He appeared to James, then to all 

8 the Apostles. Last of all, He appeared also to me, as it 

9 were, the poor weakling. 4 For I am the least of the 
Apostles ; I am not fit to be called an Apostle, inasmuch 

io as I persecuted the Church of God. But by God's grace 
I am what I am. And the grace which He showed me 
proved no empty thing. No, I toiled more abundantly 
than any of them ; yet it was not I but the grace of God 

ii aiding me. Whether, then, it be I or they, this is the 
message we are proclaiming and this the faith you embraced. 

Noresur- It does not appear that the Corinthians questioned the 

salvation! Resurrection of the Lord. It was merely the resurrection of 

believers that they denied ; but they could not stop there. 

1 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 520. 

8 h irp<l)Tot.s, not ' at the beginning of my teaching ' (Chrys. : ££ &PX**> °& *w), 
but ' in the place of primary importance ' (Grot. : ' inter prsecipua quae credere 
debetis '). 

3 iybyeprai, perf., since His Resurrection is not merely an historic fact (vy^pBv) 
but a present and abiding force. 

4 ttcrpufxa (cf. LXX Num. xii. 12; Job iii. 16; Eccl. vi. 3), 'an abortion' or 
* premature birth,' and so a stunted weakling. The idea, as explained in next 
ver., is twofold: (1) the irregularity, not the lateness, of Paul's conversion ; (2) 
the imperfection of his growth : he was, in his own estimation, the weakling of the 
apostolic brotherhood. He was always ready to confess this. It was not the 
quality but the reality of his apostleship that he asserted, and the necessity of 
asserting it was distasteful to him. His achievements were not his own but 
triumphs of God's grace through his poor instrumentality. 



THE THIRD MISSION 313 

Their contention that ' there was no such thing as a resur- 
rection of the dead ' ruled out not merely the resurrection of 
believers but the Resurrection of Christ as well ; and see 
what would then ensue. Not only would the testimony of 
the Apostles be discredited, but the faith of their converts 
would be betrayed. Salvation lay in union with Christ — cf. Rom. 
identification with Him in His Death, His Burial, His Resur- Vi 2I1 " 
rection, and His Life ; and if He had never been raised, their 
hope of salvation was belied, and their expectation of reunion 
with their beloved dead was an idle dream. They were the 
pitiable dupes of a fond delusion. 

12 Now if it is proclaimed that that Christ has been raised from 
the dead, how is it that some among you are saying that 

13 ' there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead ' ? If 
* there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead,' neither 

14 has Christ been raised ; and if Christ has not been raised, 
it turns out that the message we proclaim is an empty thing, 

15 your faith also is an empty thing. Yes, and we are being 
found false witnesses of God, because we bore witness against 
God that He raised Christ ; and He did not raise Him, if 

16 indeed it turns out that the dead are not raised. For, if the 
17 dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised; and if 

Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile : you are still 

18 in your sins. It turns out also that those who have gone 

19 to their rest in Christ, have perished. If it be for this life 
that we have set our hope in Christ, and that be all, we are 
the most pitiable of mankind. 

It w T as an appalling issue, and the Apostle dismisses it and The 
turns with exultant relief to the glorious reality. Christ fe°iily US 
has been raised, and His Resurrection is the prophecy and 
pledge not only of the future resurrection of all who are 
united to Him but of the final triumph of God's redemptive 
purpose. He is the new head of humanity. Adam was the 
original head, and by the profound principle which links the 
generations and makes each the heir of the last, his sin be- 
came the heritage of the race. And, conversely, since Christ 
is the new head of humanity, His grace flows down the ages 
like a healing stream ; nor will its beneficent operation cease 
until evil has been purged from the Universe and God the 
Father reigns in undisputed dominion. 



314 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

ao But, as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the 

21 first-fruits of those who have gone to rest. For, since it 
is through a man that there is death, it is also through a 

22 man that there is a resurrection of the dead. For, just as 
in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made live. 

23 But each in the proper order : Christ the first-fruits ; next 

24 Christ's people at His Advent ; then the end, when He 
surrenders the Kingdom to the God and Father, when He 
shall have crushed every principality and every authority 

Pss. viii. 6, 25 and power. For He must be King until ' He put all things 
26 under His feet/ The last enemy to be crushed is death; 
87 for 'He has subjected all things under His feet/ And 
when He shall say : ' All things have been subjected ' 
(plainly with the exception of Him who subjected them 
s8 all to Him) — when they shall all be subjected to Him, then 
the Son shall Himself also be subjected to Him who sub- 
jected them all to Him, that God may be all in all. 



The issues Such was the Christian faith in the Resurrection ; and the 
Apostle proceeds to remind his converts how precious it was 
to their own hearts, and what sacred issues depended on it. 
Their dearest affections were at stake. Those were sorrowful 
days at Corinth. A pestilence had visited the city, 1 and 
death was busy in her dwellings. It was the call of God, and 
many had hearkened to it. Unbelieving husbands or wives, 
bereaved of their beloved, turned in their desolation to the 
Saviour whom they had hitherto rejected and, moved by 
the hope of a blessed reunion, confessed their faith in the 
Gospel. They were ' baptised for the sake of their dead.' 
If there was ' no such thing as a resurrection,' that tender 
hope was a fond delusion. 

And there was more at stake. The Corinthian Christians 
were bearing constant sacrifice and suffering for their Lord. 
The Apostle reminds them of the persecutions which he had 
endured in their midst and those which he had endured 
and was still enduring at Ephesus. He was facing death 
daily in the hope of winning the glory of the Resurrection. 
If that hope were a dream, then his sacrifices and theirs 
were unavailing, and it were better to embrace the Epicurean 
philosophy and snatch the fleeting pleasures of the passing 
hour. 

1 Cf. p. 28$. 



THE THIRD MISSION 315 

19 Else, what will they do who are baptised for the sake of 
their dead ? * If the dead are not raised at all, why are they 

30 actually baptised for their sake ? Why, too, are we running 

31 risks every hour ? Daily I am facing death — ay, by that Cf. 2 Cor. 
boasting in you, brothers, which is mine in Christ Jesus our "• 8# 

3a Lord. If it was from merely human motives that I fought 
with wild beasts at Ephesus, 2 what am I the better for it ? 
If the dead are not raised, ' let us eat and drink, for on the is. «ii. 13 
morrow we die.' 8 

The Apostle had a purpose in quoting that Epicurean a warning 
maxim. Too many of the Corinthians were actually prac- ulSSnism. 

1 A much vexed passage. A mere enumeration of all the various interpretations 
would require, says Bengel, a dissertation. Cf. collection in Poole's Syncps. Crit. 
occupying four folio pages. The clue to the Apostle's meaning lies in ver. 18 : 
the hope of reunion in Heaven with their beloved dead who had ' gone to their 
rest in Christ,' had induced some, hitherto unbelieving, to profess faith and be 
baptised. Of other interpretations suffice it to indicate three which have had a 
long and wide vogue: I. Vicarium baptisma, 'Vicarious Baptism' (Ambrstr., 
Grot.). Believers submitted themselves to the Sacrament in name of their un- 
baptised dead, that these might rank as Christians and share in the felicity of the 
Resurrection. The practice certainly prevailed in the time of Tertullian (cf. De 
Resurr. Cam. 48 ; Adv. Marc. v. 10), but only, it would seem, among heretics — 
the Marcionites (cf. Chrys.) and the Cerinthians (cf. Epiphan. Hcer. xxviii. 7). 
There is, however, no evidence that it was known at Corinth, and it probably 
originated in a misunderstanding of the text. 2. After pouring scorn on that 
heretical practice Chrys. propounds his own view. He explains the passage by 
the fashion obtaining in his time at the administration of Baptism : the catechumen 
repeated the article of the Creed ' I believe in the Resurrection of the Dead,' and 
on the strength of this confession of his faith he was then immersed in token of 
his burial and resurrection with Christ Thus ' baptism for the dead ' was sup- 
posed to mean ' baptism on the ground of faith in the resurrection of the dead.' 
3. Baptisma clinicorum, * Death-bed Baptism,' administered on the approach of 
death to those who had postponed the observance of the Sacrament for fear of 
mortal sin (Epiphan., Calv., Beng.). But (1) virep tQv veupQv cannot mean 'on 
the verge of death, 'jam morituri; and (2) it was not until a later period that the 
custom of delaying Baptism arose (cf. Append. VI). 

* The same metaphor occurs in iv. 9 (cf. p. 254). d^pio/xaxetp is certainly figura- 
tive. It is incredible that Paul, a Roman citizen, should actually have fought in 
the circus as a be-stiarius. Cf . Ignat. Rom. v, where the saint, on his way to 
martyrdom at Rome, says he is ' fighting with wild beasts all the while,' 4v5edefi4- 
vos dixa Xeowdpdois, meaning his brutal guards. ' Wild beasts ' was a common 
metaphor for savage men (cf. Pompey in Appian, 11. ix. 61 : ol'ots tfijpfois paxbpxOa. 
Ps. xxii. 12, 13), especially the mob or tyrants (cf. Philostr. Vit. Apott. IV. 38). 
For a graphic picture of drjpofiaxla, cf. Act. Paul, et Thecl. 33 ff. j Martyr. Polyc. 
ii-iv. 

1 ' Epicureorum rox ' (Wetstein, who quotes classical parallels). Cf. Hor. Od. 
1. xi. 7, 8. 



316 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

tising it. They reasoned from the philosophical principle 
of the essential evil of matter that, since the body was a 
perishing thing, they might indulge its appetites as they 
would. It was a mischievous delusion, and it came of their 
converse with pagan thought and pagan manners, exemplify- 
ing that saying of the Greek poet : x * 111 company corrupts 
good characters/ In truth their doubt of the Resurrection 
was moral as well as intellectual. 

33 Be not deceived. ' 111 company corrupts good characters/ 

34 Awake from your debauch to righteousness, and give over 
sinning ; for there are some who have no recognition of God. 
It is to move you to shame that I am talking. 

Two And now the Apostle addresses himself to a consideration 

objections: of the } nte llectual problem of the Resurrection of the Body. 

Two difficulties had presented themselves to the minds of 

the Corinthians. 

35 But some one will say : ' How are the dead raised ? And 

with what sort of body do they come ? * 

(i) The These are difficulties which have been felt all down the 

of S the Utl ° n a § es anc ^ are s ^ as y ital as ever. The first is presented by 
body. the experience of our mortal bodies after death. The early 
Christians abhorred the pagan fashion of burning their dead 
in funeral pyres and preserving the ashes in urns. The body 
was sacred in their eyes, and they committed it reverentfy 
to the earth. 2 Reverence was their sole motive, but the 
pagans imputed to them a fond solicitude to preserve the 
body intact until it should be reanimated at the Resurrection ; 
and it is told that during the persecution in the reign of the 
Emperor Verus they outraged the bodies of the martyrs at 
Lyons and Vienne, and then burned them and cast the ashes 
into the river Rhone, that they might have no hope of re- 
surrection. ' Now let us see,' they jeered, ' if they will rise 
again, and if their God can succour them and snatch them 
out of our hands/ 3 It would indeed have been a just taunt 
had the Christians entertained that notion. For when the 

1 Cf. p. 24. 

* Cf. Minuc. Fel. Oct. II, 34. 

* Eu5. Hist. Eccl. v. 1 {adfim). 



THE THIRD MISSION 317 

body is committed to the earth, it does not lie there ' with 
meek hands folded on its breast,' awaiting the Resurrection- 
morning. It decays and turns to dust. The sum of matter 
is definite and constant, and our bodies are composed of the 
common stuff ; and even as the leaves of autumn do not 
perish when they wither and fall, but are cast into Nature's 
alembic, and the mantle which arrays her each spring-time 
is no new garment but the old fabric refashioned, re woven, 
and dyed with fresh colours, so our bodies when they die 
are resolved into their elements. They ' melt into the 
general mass of nature, to be recompounded in the other 
forms with which she daily supplies those which daily dis- 
appear, and return under different forms — the watery 
particles to streams and showers, the earthly parts to enrich 
their mother earth, the airy portions to wanton in the 
breeze, and those of fire to supply the blaze of Aldebaran and 
his brethren.' And how, then, are the dead raised ? Can 
the dispersed elements ever be re-collected and redintegrated ? 
These bodies which are ours now, have served other uses in 
the bygone ages, and they will serve yet others in the ages 
to come ; and at the Resurrection where will they be and 
to whom will they belong ? 

Nor is this the only difficulty. If the dead are raised, (2) Unsuit- 
' with what sort of body do they come ? ' The Eternal a b mat y crili 
World is a spiritual realm, and what place will there be there bod y to , a 
for material bodies ? ' Flesh and blood,' said the Corinth- world. 
ians, ' cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does corrup- 
tion inherit incorruption.' The Anthropomorphites solved 
the problem by materialising the spiritual world. They 
read in the Scriptures of the image of God, His face, His eyes 
and ears and hands and feet ; and taking this language 
literally they accounted the doctrine of His incorporeality a 
blasphemy and anathematised the books of Origen where it 
was taught. 1 It is told of Serapion, that venerable monk of 
the Nitrian Desert, that when the doctrine was presented 
to him, he wept and wailed and cast himself on the ground. 
' Woe is me ! ' he cried. ' They have taken away from me 
my God ; and I have none to hold now, nor know I any longer 

1 Cf. Socr. £ccl> Hist. VI. 7 ; Aug. Centra Epist. Manich. 25. 



318 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

whom to adore or address.' x And so precisely reasoned the 
Corinthians from their diverse point of view. As Serapion 
saw no place in the Eternal World for an incorporeal God, 
so they saw none for a material body. 
Analogy of These are no frivolous objections. The difficulties were 
hSvS. d ver Y rea -l> an d they were propounded in all seriousness ; yet 
how does the Apostle receive them ? * Senseless man ! ' 
he exclaims ; and it seems a sorry beginning. But consider 
what the epithet means. It is well defined by the use which 
Socrates makes of it when, in the course of his theistic 
argument, he applies it to a statue. 2 A sculptor's noblest 
creation is but ' a senseless image,' seeing nothing, hearing 
nothing, understanding nothing. And this is the idea which 
leaped into the Apostle's mind when those doubting questions 
were presented to him. ' Senseless man ! ' he cries ; ' un- 
perceiving as an inanimate statue ! open your eyes to the 
wonders which surround you. Look at the fields and see the 
seed cast into the ground and springing up in a rich and 
golden harvest : there is the miracle of the Resurrection 
enacted before your eyes.' The seed dies, but it dies that 
it may live again, and live more abundantly. For death is 
not merely, in St. Bernard's phrase, ' the gate of life ' ; it is 
the pathway to an ampler and nobler life. 

36 Senseless man ! what you yourself sow is not made live 

37 unless it die. And what you sow — it is not the body which 
is to come into being that you sow, but a bare grain of 

38 wheat, perchance, or some of the other sorts ; and God 
gives it a body as He has chosen, and each of the seeds its 
proper body. 

Varieties But will this suffice ? The harvest is no less material 

than the seed, and will the nobler body which will spring 
from it be less material than the mortal body or better fitted 
to inherit the Kingdom of God ? Consider, argues the Apostle, 
what ' body ' is. It is a larger term than ' flesh.' There 
are indeed bodies of flesh, but even these are widely diverse. 
There is human flesh, and there is the flesh of beast and bird 

1 Cassian. Collat. Patr. Scet. X. 2. 

■ Xen. Mem. I. iv. 4 : irorepi aoi doKov<ri ol ivepyatf/xtyoi ttdu\a &<f>poi>& rt sai 
ixlvrfra dj-iodav/xaaTorepoi flrou ij ol fwa S/x<ppovi re ical ivepyi J 



THE THIRD MISSION 319 

and fish ; and these are all different, yet they are all flesh. 
And they are all bodies, but they are not the only sorts of 
body. There are heavenly bodies as well as earthly bodies, 
and the heavenly bodies are not bodies of flesh. And, 
moreover, like the earthly bodies, they are of different sorts. 
Sun, moon, and stars have each a peculiar glory. 

39 Every flesh is not the same flesh, but men's is one kind, 
cattle's flesh another, fowls' flesh another, and fishes' another. 

40 And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the 
glory of the heavenly is of one sort, and that of the earthly 

41 of another. There is one glory of sun, and another glory of 
moon, and another glory of stars ; for star differs from star in 
glory. 

' Flesh,' then, and * body * are not synonymous terms ; The 
and while flesh cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, it by no animal 
means follows that body cannot. And hence the Apostle the splri- 
carries forward the argument. He distinguishes between tual bodv 
' animal bodies ' and ' spiritual bodies.' The former are 
bodies of flesh, and they are earthly and cannot inherit the 
Kingdom of God ; but the latter are heavenly bodies, and 
they can. ' In the heavenly,' says St. Augustine, 1 ' there 
is no flesh, but bodies simple and lucid, which the Apostle 
styles " spiritual," while others call them " ethereal." ' And, 
furthermore, there is a relation betwixt the two. The animal 
body is in truth the rough cast of the spiritual bod}^. There 
is, ' as it were, a brain within the brain, a body within the 
body, something like that which the Orientals have for ages 
spoken of as the " Astral Body " ' ; 2 and in due season the 
scaffolding will be taken down, ' this muddy vesture of decay ' 
will fall off, and the spiritual body will emerge purged of its 
grossness and fit to inherit the Kingdom of God. Our bodies 
meanwhile are only in the making. Their evolution began 
when ' the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, Gen ^ 
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ' ; and the 
agelong process will be complete when the Lord Jesus Christ 
has ' refashioned the body of our humiliation into conformity Phil iH 
with the body of his glory,' and we wear no longer ' the «• 

1 D$ Fid. et Symb. 24. 

2 McConnell, Evol. of Intmort.^ p. 1 66. 



320 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

image of the earthly man ' but ' the image of the Heavenly 
Man.' * And the Resurrection is the achievement of this 
consummation. 

4 

42 Thus also the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in cor- 

43 ruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown in dishonour, 
it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in 

44 power ; it is sown an animal 2 body, it is raised a spiritual. 

45 If there is an animal body, there is also a spiritual. Thus also 
Gen. ii. 7. it is written : ' The first man Adam became a living soul ' : 

46 the last Adam is become a life-giving spirit. But what comes 
first is not the spiritual but the animal ; then comes the 

47 spiritual. The first was ' a man formed of the dust of the 

48 ground ' ; the second is a Man from Heaven. What the man 
formed of the dust was, that also are the men formed of the 
dust ; and what the Heavenly Man is, this also are the heavenly 

Gen. v. 3. 49 men. And as we wore the image of the man formed of the 
dust, we shall wear 3 also the image of the Heavenly Man. 

Final Thus it was a just contention that ' flesh and blood cannot 

uonof a * inherit the Kingdom of God/ but it was no disproof of the 
living and Resurrection of the Body. For when the body is raised, it 
will be no longer flesh and blood but a spiritual body. And 
this, adds the Apostle, is a sure prospect ; for it is no mere 
speculation : it is ' a mystery.' And, as he employed the 
term, ' a mystery ' signifies not a hidden truth but a truth 
once hidden and now revealed. 4 Such a truth was the 
Resurrection of the Body. In bygone ages it had been a 
vague dream, a yearning inspired by the heart's rebellion 
against dissolution and disembodiment ; but the Resurrec- 
tion of Christ had triumphantly confirmed it. He had been 
Cf. vers, raised from the dead, ' the first-fruits of those who have 
2 °' 23 ' gone to rest.' One with Him in His Death and Burial, they 
will at His Advent share also His Resurrection and Glorifica- 
tion. Some three and a half years previously the Thessal- 
onians, uninstructed as yet in the hope of the Resurrection, 
1 rh. iv. had vexed themselves with the question whether their friends 
13 " l8, who had already gone to rest would be excluded from the 

1 Cf. p. 52. • Cf. p. 349- 

• Though <pop£<Tw/xcv, * let us wear/ is more strongly supported, Qoptffotiev, * we 
shall wear,' is certainly authentic. The exhortation is impossible, since the 
resurrection of the body is God's work. Such itacism is frequent. Cf. Rom, 
v. I. * Cf. p. 440. 



THE THIRD MISSION 321 

triumph of the Second Advent, which they regarded as im- 
minent ; and the Apostle had reassured them by telling 
them that the appearance of the Lord would be the signal for 
the resurrection of all who had died in faith. 1 And now it 
seems that a converse misgiving had assailed the minds of 
the Corinthians. They too believed in the imminence of 
the Second Advent ; and since it is through death and re- 
surrection that the corruptible body attains incorruption, 
they wondered what would happen to those who survived 
until the Lord's Appearing and never died. Would their 
bodies remain mortal and corruptible, unfit to inherit the 
Kingdom of God ? The Apostle answers by assuring them 
that all, whether asleep or awake, would share the glorious 
transformation. 

50 And this I admit, brothers, that ' flesh and blood cannot 
inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit 

51 incorruption.' Look you, it is a mystery that I am telling you. 

52 We shall not all be laid to rest, but we shall all be changed, in 

a moment, in the twinkle of an eye, at the last trumpet. For cf. 1 Th. 
the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incor- iv - l6 - 

53 ruptible, and we shall be changed. For this that is corruptible 
must clothe itself with incorruption, and this that is mortal 

54 clothe itself with immortality. And when this that is cor- 
ruptible has clothed itself with incorruption and this that is 
mortal has clothed itself with immortality, then will come 

to pass the word that is written : ' Death is swallowed up in is. xxv. 8 ; 
55 victory.' 'Where, death, is thy victory? where, death, is Hos - xm - 
56 thy sting ? ' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin 
57 is the Law; but thanks to God who gives us the victory 

through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
58 And so, my beloved brothers, prove steadfast, immovable, 

abounding in the work of the Lord always, knowing that your 

toil is no empty thing in the Lord. 

The last question in the rescript concerned the Gentile 6- coiiec- 
collection on behalf of the poor Christians at Jerusalem. 2 JSorat 
The scheme had been submitted to the Corinthians by Titus Jerusalem. 
and the colleague whom the Church of Antioch had associated 
with him in the management of the business, 3 and it had in 
the first instance been well received ; but amid the subse- 
quent dissension it had encountered opposition. Already, 

1 Cf. p. 163. ■ Cf. p. 223. » Cf. p. 234. 

x 



322 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

it would seem, there were mutterings of a calumny which 
was afterwards unblushingly alleged — that in his zeal for 
the poor Paul had a dishonest end in view, and under the 
pretext of charity was seeking his own enrichment ; and 
apparently these had reached his ears. The rescript, how- 
ever, made no mention of the odious insinuation, raising 
merely a question of procedure— whether the Church should 
proceed immediately with the collection or await his arrival. 
His answer is that the Corinthians should adopt the method 
which he had instituted in the Churches of Galatia, and lay 
by each Lord's Day as much as they could afford of their 
week's earnings. There was a double advantage in this 
method : not only would a gradual accumulation prove less 
burdensome but it would yield a better result. 1 The col- 
lection would, moreover, be ready when he arrived, and it 
could be at once forwarded to its destination. And, he adds 
significantly, he would not himself undertake its conveyance 
thither. They must appoint deputies, and these he would 
furnish with a letter of credit to the Church at Jerusalem ; 
or else, he says, evidently to incite their liberality, if the 
contributions proved sufficiently generous, he would, instead 
of furnishing the deputies with a letter of credit, accompany 
them in person and introduce them to the Church. 

xvi. i Regarding the collection for the saints : Follow the order 

2 which I prescribed to the Churches of Galatia. Every 
First Day of the Week let each of you lay by him in store 
as he may be prospered, that, when I come, there may 

3 then be no making of collections. And when I arrive, the 
persons whom you approve I shall send with a letter of 

4 credit 2 to convey your benefaction to Jerusalem. If, 
however, it be worth my going too, they will go in my 
company. 

The And now the letter closes with various personal concerns. 

plan? 5 First, the Apostle explains his plans for the future. He 

had intended leaving Ephesus at an early date and sailing 

1 Cf. Ambrstr. : ' quia quod paulatim colligitur, nee grave est, et invenitur 
mnltum.' 

8 Literally 'letters' (<5e' eTntrroXwv) ; but it is unlikely that each of the deputies 
would be furnished with a letter, and iirurTokal was used of a single letter. Cf. 
Lightfoot, Phil. pp. 140 ff. 



THE THIRD MISSION 323 

direct to Corinth ; but this purpose had been overruled by 
the emergence at once of large opportunities and of cor- 
responding difficulties which required his presence yet a 
while in Asia. In truth there was another reason for delay. 
Had he proceeded forthwith to Corinth, he must have dealt Cf. 2 Cor, 
sternly with the Church ; and his hope was that, if he h 
postponed his visit, wiser counsels would in the interval 
prevail, and he would then be absolved from that hateful 
necessity. This motive, however, he meanwhile conceals 
and simply intimates his intention of remaining at Ephesus 
until Pentecost of next year and then travelling overland 
through Macedonia. He would thus reach Corinth in the 
autumn of 56, and perhaps he might be able to spend the 
winter there. 

5 I shall come to you after travelling through Macedonia ; 

6 for through Macedonia I am to travel. And with you, perhaps, 
I shall make a stay or even spend the winter, that you may 

7 send me on my way wherever I may be going. For I do 
not wish to pay you just now merely a passing visit : I hope 

8 to stay some time with you, if the Lord permit. I shall, 

9 however, stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost ; for a wide door 
for active work has opened to me, and there are many opposing. 

Another matter he mentions with peculiar solicitude. Recom- 
Timothy and his party were on their way to Corinth by the [fo" of 
overland route through Macedonia, and Paul reckoned that Timothy 
their arrival would synchronise with the delivery of his letter. 1 
He apprehended that the Corinthians might make it a griev- 
ance that he had sent them so youthful an ambassador on 
so delicate an errand, and he bespeaks for him a kindly 
reception. He was indeed young, but he was, as they knew 
by experience, a true comrade of the Apostle. It would 
have been well that a more experienced delegate should have 
been sent, and Paul had been anxious that Apollos should 
undertake the office ; but he had declined it. The unpleasant 
experience which had driven him from Corinth was fresh 
in his remembrance, and he judged, perhaps wisely, that 
his presence there would meanwhile be inopportune. So 
Timothy was being sent, and they must receive him graciously. 

Cf. p. 260. 



324 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

The Apostle was anxiously awaiting the report which he and 
his companions would bring back from Corinth. 

io If Timothy comes, see to it that there is nothing to affright 
him in his intercourse with you ; for he is doing the Lord's 

ii work like myself. Therefore let no one set him at naught. 
Send him on his way in peace, that he may come to me ; for 

12 1 am expecting him and the brothers with him. Regarding 
our brother Apollos, I repeatedly besought him to go to you 
with the brothers, and he would on no account go at present. 
He will go, however, whenever it is opportune. 

Apprecia- He pleads with them to rally their faith and love. Their 
Corinthian letter and the personal statements of their three messengers 
deputies, had gladdened him ; and he makes special mention of his 
friend Stephanas, who with his household had been stead- 
fastly loyal during the trouble, and begs them to be guided 
by that example. 

13 Be vigilant ; stand firm in the Faith ; play the man ; 

14, 15 be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. I beseech 

you, brothers — you know the household of Stephanas, how 

they are the first-fruits of Achaia, and they enlisted in the 

16 service of the saints — that you on your part enlist under 
men of this sort and under everyone who shares their 

17 work and toils hard. It is a joy to me that Stephanas and 
Fortunatus and Achaicus have come : the service which 

18 you could not render me, they have made up. They have 
refreshed my spirit and yours too. Recognise the full 
worth of men of their sort. 

Greetings. This ends the letter, and here the customary greetings 
are entered. The first is a fraternal greeting to the church 
of Corinth from the churches of Asia, not merely the church 
of Ephesus but all the churches of the Province ; and this 
indicates how protracted had been the stay of the Corinthian 
delegates and how widespread was the interest which their 
visit had created. The second is a greeting from Aquila 
and Prisca. Corinth was their former home, and they had 
many friends there ; and so they send ■ many greetings/ 
Their house was one of the meeting-places of the Ephesian 
Christians, and they associate their fellow-worshippers in 
their expression of good-will. And since the Corinthian 
trouble had excited general solicitude at Ephesus, a third 
greeting is added — from ' all the brothers.' 



THE THIRD MISSION 325 

19 The churches of Asia greet you. Aquila and Prisca send 
you many greetings in the Lord, and in these the church at 

20 their house joins. All the brothers greet you. Greet one 
another with a holy kiss. 

And now the Apostle appends his sign-manual. The 

Apostle's 

21, 22 My greeting with my own hand — Paul's. If any autograph. 

ONE DOES NOT LOVE THE LORD, LET HIM BE ACCURSED. 

23 ' O our Lord, come ! ' x The grace of the Lord Jesus 
24 be with you. my love be with you all in christ 
Jesus. 

The letter was forthwith conveyed to Corinth by Stephanas, Corinthian 
Fortunatus, and Achaicus. Stephanas had been steadfastly obdurac * 
loyal to the Apostle ; and if his companions had been dis- 
affected in the recent controversies, their experience at 
Ephesus had disarmed their hostility, and on their return 
to Corinth they would co-operate with Timothy. There is 
no record of what transpired, but the issue is indubitable. 
The effort at conciliation proved futile, and Timothy and 
his companions returned to Ephesus with a disheartening 
report. The feud between the dissident parties of the 
Judaists and the Spirituals continued, and both alike were 
incensed against the Apostle and assailed him with cruel 
and insulting charges. The former persisted in their denial 
of his apostleship ; and his explanation of the generous cf. 1 Cor. 
motives which had prompted him to waive his apostolic lx * 
privileges, was contemptuously flouted. His forgoing of 
the right to maintenance they construed as a cunning device 
to ingratiate himself, and they insinuated that his collection 2 Cor. xu. 
for the poor at Jerusalem was a selfish imposition. And as l6 ' lS * 
for the Spirituals, they maintained their antinomian attitude, 
and accused him of carnality in insisting upon moral obliga- x. 2. 
tions ; and, as though conscious of the untenability of their 
position, they resorted to personal abuse. They raised the 
old cry of the simplicity of his preaching. His letter indeed 

1 fiapa.va.dd, an Aramaic prayer which passed into a Christian watchword. It 
is a question how the phrase should be divided, (i) fiapdv add, 'our Lord has 
come,' or rather 'is coming' (patristic). Cf. Phil. iv. 5: 6 Kvpcos iyyfo. 
(2) fiapdva dd (tfrl JO10)> 'our Lord, come!' Cf. Dalman, Words of Jesus, 

T T - T 

p. 328. The latter is preferable. Cf. Rev. xxii. 20 : dfii'jv, %PX 0V i Kupte 'Irpov* 
The phrase occurs at the close of the eucharistic prayer in the Didache, X : et rts 
&yi6s itrriVy ipx^ffdw et tis o6k Hwti, fieravoe'iTw. fia.pava.9d' aurfv 



326 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

was characterised by strength of argument and fulness of 
knowledge ; and, unable to dispute this, they sneered not 
x. 10, xi. 6. only at the rudeness of his speech but at his physical weakness 
xi. i, r6. and the ungainliness of his appearance ; they called him 
xi.23; C f. ' senseless/ and they even went the length of suggesting that 
v - 13> his enthusiasm was stark madness. 

Hasty and Such was the report which his deputies brought ; and so 
visits" grievous was it to the Apostle that he interrupted his ministry 
Corinth. a ^ Ephesus and paid a hasty visit to Corinth. 1 His faith in 
the erring church had been sorely tried, but he still clung 
to the hope that reason would prevail, and he went in a 
gracious and conciliatory spirit. The issue was a bitter 
disappointment. His forbearance was misconstrued. His 
critics contrasted it with the ' courage/ the ' confidence/ 
the ' boldness ' which his letter had exhibited ; and they 
accused him of pusillanimity. His language, they sneered, 
cf. x. i, a, was very stout when he was writing to them at Ephesus 
9 ' IO ' with the breadth of the JEgean betwixt him and them ; but 
when he met them face to face, he was all meekness — a 
faltering and pitiful weakling. His loudest detractors were 
cf. x. 7, xi. the Judaist propagandists, especially their leader, who had 
Ji. 5, x come from Jerusalem with a ' letter of commendation ' and 
boasted of his authority, his commission from ' the super- 
lative Apostles/ 
Astern It was an impracticable situation. Remonstrance was 

useless ; reason was unavailing : it would only have pro- 
voked recrimination and created fresh exasperation. And 
cf. xiii. 2. so the Apostle took his departure with an intimation that 
he would ere long return and deal decisively with the prime 
cf. ii. 2-4, offenders. On reaching Ephesus he wrote a letter, defining 
the situation and reiterating his warning. 8 It was a stern 
message ; and it seems that, like St. Ambrose in the brave 
protest which he addressed to the Emperor Theodosius on 
the Thessalonian massacre in the year 390, 8 he wrote it with 
his own hand, dispensing with the service of an amanuensis. 4 

1 Cf. Append. I. I Cf. Append. I. • Eput. Ii. 14. 

* This seems the most reasonable interpretation of airbt 8k iyb UavXos (x. i), 
which is otherwise explained either (i) as contrasting Paul with Timothy and the 
others whom he had previously sent to Corinth, or (2) as contrasting his gentleness 
with the undutif ul behaviour of the Corinthians, or (3) as contrasting his present for- 
bearance with the apostolic severity which he would shortly display. Cf. Bengel. 



THE THIRD MISSION 327 

Not only was his grief too poignant for deliberate expression 
but he would not put his erring Church to heedless shame. 
No unsympathetic ear must hear his reproaches. He wrote 
with strong emotion, with a trembling hand and dim eyes ; 
and there are passages which, as even without his express cf. a. 4. 
testimony one might well imagine, were blotted with tears. 

It was indeed a stern letter, the sternest perhaps that he a last 
ever wrote. It flashes keen sarcasm and breathes indigna- a PP eal - 
tion and scorn ; nevertheless it is instinct with tenderness, 
' the meekness and sweet reasonableness of Christ/ It is 
not a sentence of condemnation ; it is rather a warning of cf. x. 1 
the impending judgment and a final appeal to the Corinthians " 3 ' xil1 ' 
to repent and spare him the grief of dealing severely with 
them. He recognised that the blame rested on the ring- 
leaders. They indeed were hopeless, and their doom was cf. xiu. 5. 
inevitable ; but the mass of the Church were mere dupes, IO * 
and he would fain believe that they were sound at heart 
and would bethink themselves betimes. 

Third Letter to Corinth 
(2 Cor. x-xiii. 10) 

It is only the body of the letter that has been preserved, obscurity 
and the opening address and the final greetings are lacking. {**? 
There is no writing of the Apostle which is so obscure ; and 
the reason is that it abounds in personal references. It 
bristles with quotations — words and phrases which had 
been hurled at the Apostle during his unhappy visit to 
Corinth and which rankled in his memory. These the 
Corinthians would recognise, but they are frequently puzzling 
to ourselves. 

He begins with the charge of cowardice. His letters from The 
his secure vantage-ground at Ephesus, it was alleged, were co^rdfc* 
very ' courageous/ but when he came to Corinth and faced 
his critics, he was all meekness and humility, ' valiant as the 
wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse.' This was the 
taunt especially of the party which posed as ' the Spirituals ' 
and resisted his disciplinary mandate on the ground that 
flesh and spirit were distinct domains, charging him, when 
he insisted on moral purity, with ' comporting himself 



t. 12. 



328 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

according to the flesh ' and not ' according to the spirit.' 
His answer is that they misconstrued his attitude. His 
gentleness was not cowardice ; it was forbearance. The 
Corinthian Church was like a revolted city, and he had laid 
siege to it. Meanwhile he would not assail it with the weight 
of his artillery and raze it to the ground, but after the Lord's 
example would summon it to surrender and recall it to its 
allegiance. Only in the event of persistent obduracy would 
he resort to severity. And this was no empty threat ; for, 
cf. 1 Cor. let the Judaists deny it as they would, he was armed with 
apostolic authority : he too, ' held by Christ/ 

x. 1 I Paul myself exhort you by the meekness and sweet 
reasonableness of Christ — I who ' to your face am humble 
among you, but when far away am so courageous against 

2 you ' — I beg that I may not when with you show my 
' courage ' with the f confidence * wherewith I reckon on 
* dealing boldly ' with some that reckon us as ' comporting 

3 ourselves according to the flesh.' Though it is in the flesh 
that we are comporting ourselves, it is not according to the 

4 flesh that we are warring ; for the weapons of our warfare 
are not fleshly but divinely powerful x for the pulling down 

3 of strongholds. We pull down ' reckonings ' and everything 
that lifts itself on high against the knowledge of God ; and 
we bring every thought captive into submission to Christ ; 

6 and we are in readiness to take vengeance on every rebellion 

7 whenever your submission is complete. It is at the face- 
value of things that you look. If any one has confidence 
in himself that he ' holds by Christ,' let him bethink himself 
and take this into his reckoning that, just as he ' holds by 

8 Christ,' so also do we. For if I boast somewhat too abund- 
antly of our authority which the Lord gave for your up- 
building and not for your downpulling, I shall not be put 

9 to shame. That I may not seem as though I were merely 
10' terrifying you through my letters ' — ' his letters,' says my 

critic, ' are indeed weighty and vigorous, but his bodily 

11 presence is weak and his speech contemptible ' — let such a 

man take this into his reckoning, 2 that what we are in our 

1 Supa-rd rifi Oey, a Hebraism, equivalent to a superlative. Cf. Jon. iii. 3 : 
v6\is fieydXr} t$ 0e<£, 'an exceeding great city.' Ac. vii. 20: Affreios t<£ 6e<£, 
f exceeding fair. ' 

1 So Chrys., beginning a new sentence with Xva fi-f}, connecting ver. 9 with 
ver. 11, and regarding ver. 10 as parenthetical. Ver. 9 is commonly attached to 
oik ai<7xvv0-/]<ro/.iai, and tva fxrj is then elliptical : ' (and this I say) in order that I 
may not seem ' ; * non addam plura ea de re, ne quis inania esse putet 
terriculamenta* (Grot.) ; 'hoc eo dico, ne, etc.' (Beng.). 



THE THIRD MISSION 329 

speech by letter when far away, that shall we be also when 
we are among you and take action. 

And now he assails the Judaists with keen sarcasm. They sarcastic 
arrogated to themselves a superiority which he would never [o J judtist 
have had the ' boldness ' to claim ; and their pretensions criticism, 
had no better foundation than their colossal self-complacency. 
They saw themselves fair 

' none else being by, 
Themselves poised with themselves in either eye.' 

They stigmatised him as a usurper of apostolic functions, but 
in truth they were the usurpers. His rule was to preach the Rom. xv. 
Gospel only where it was still unknown, always respecting 20, 
the boundary between his field of operations and another 
man's. Corinth was his domain, for he had been the first 
to preach there ; and his hope — a hope which was actually R 0m . xv. 
realised ere long when he carried the Gospel thence to Epirus I9< 
and Illyricum and Dalmatia * — was that he might advance 
beyond Achaia into regions yet untrodden. And this was 
his complaint against the Judaists, that with the world 
before them they had dogged his footsteps and sown dissen- 
sion in the Churches which he had founded. 

\2 We have not indeed the ' boldness ' to class or compare 
ourselves with some of the self-commenders. No, in their 
measurement of themselves by themselves and their com- 
parison of themselves with themselves they have no under- 
standing. As for us it is not outwith our measured domain 
that we shall boast, but according to the measure of the 
boundary-line which God apportioned to us for a measure to 

14 reach as far as you. There is not, as there would be if we did 
not reach to you, any overstretching on our part ; for we 
were the first to get as far as you in the preaching of the 

15 Gospel of Christ. We do not boast ourselves outwith our 
measured domain in other men's toils, but our hope is that, 
as your faith grows, we may, still keeping to our boundary-line, 

16 be so abundantly enlarged among you as to preach the Gospel 
in the regions beyond you, without intruding on another's boun- 

17 dary-line or boasting of work which we found already done. 'He j e r. ix. 23 

18 that boasts, let him boast in the Lord ' ; for it is not the p ; <& J 
self-commender, it is not he, that stands the test ; no, it is or " *' 3I ' 
the man whom the Lord commends. 

1 Cf. p. 612. 



33Q LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Apology It was distasteful to the Apostle to write thus. It looked 

v°ndica- elf " n ^e boasting, and it might seem to justify his enemies' 
tion - designation of him as ' senseless.' But he had a good 

excuse. He was actuated by solicitude for his Corinthian 
converts, lest they should be seduced from the Gospel of 
salvation by faith in Christ. They showed a fine patience 
with that aggressive person, the ringleader of the Judaist 
propagandists who were subverting the true evangel ; and 
surely they might bear with him. He had no less authority 
than ' the superlative Apostles ' whom the Judaists exalted 
at his expense, denying the validity of his ordination and 
pronouncing him a mere ' layman ' ; and, say what his 
critics would about the rudeness of his speech, they could 
hardly disparage his knowledge, at all events at Corinth, 
where it had been so amply displayed. 

xi. i Would that }^ou could have patience with me in some 

2 little senselessness ! Nay, do have patience with me. I 
am jealous for you as God is jealous ; for I betrothed you 

3 to one husband to present a pure virgin to Christ, and my 
Gen. iii.13. fear is that, as ' the Serpent beguiled ' Eve in his craftiness, 

your thoughts may be corrupted from their simplicity and 

4 purity toward Christ. For if your visitor is proclaiming 
another Jesus whom we did not proclaim, or you are 
receiving a different Spirit which you did not then receive 
or a different Gospel which you did not then accept, your 

5 patience is beautiful ! 1 For I reckon that I am nothing 
6 inferior to 'the superlative Apostles/ And though I be 

a mere ' layman ' 2 in speech, I am no layman in knowledge. 
No, in every respect we made this manifest in every one's 
judgment in our relations with you. 

His The Judaists were making a vast ado about Paul's re- 

wthoul ng ceiving no remuneration during his ministry at Corinth. 

salary^ Despite what he had said in his previous letter, they con- 
strued it as a confession that he lacked apostolic authority, 
and with stupid inconsistency they alleged further that it 

Cf. 1 Cor. evinced an ungracious attitude toward his converts, adducing 
perhaps his proud protestation that he would rather starve 
than accept a grudging requital. It was a preposterous con- 

1 KaAws, ironical ; cf. Mk. vii. 9. Instead of bearing with bini they should 
have counted him accursed (cf. Gal. i 8). 
8 Cf. p. 307. 



Cf. 1 Cor. 
ix. 1-18. 



ix. 15. 



THE THIRD MISSION 331 

tention, and he makes merciless sport of it. At aD events it 
could be no grievance to the Corinthians that he had re- 
frained from making himself a burden to them. If there 
was any grievance in the matter, it belonged rather, he re- 
marks with a touch of sarcasm, to his Macedonian converts 
whom they had allowed to come to his rescue. The truth 
was that the Judaists were feeling sore about it. They were 
greedy men and exacted their own salary, and the contrast 
between them and him was the talk of the whole Province 
of Achaia ; and he certainly would not dam up the stream 
of boasting in regard to himself by altering his practice and 
demanding payment. That would be playing the game of 
the Judaists. It would put him and them on a level, and 
would afford an outlet for their boasting which his generosity 
had dammed up. Their complaint was their condemnation. 
It revealed what sort of men they were. They were false 
Apostles. They called him ' a trickster ' and accused him cf. xii. i& 
of ' craft ' ; but they were the tricksters, ' crafty workmen ' 
masquerading as Apostles of Christ. 

7 Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might 
be exalted, inasmuch as I preached the Gospel of God to you 

8 gratuitously ? Other churches I despoiled by taking a salary 

9 from them in order to minister to you. And when I was 
with you and had lack, I cramped no one ; 1 for the brothers 
came from Macedonia and supplied my lack, and in everything 

10 1 kept myself and will keep myself unburdensome to you. As 
Christ's truth is in me, this boasting in regard to me will not 

11 be dammed up 2 in the regions of Achaia. Wherefore ? Be- 

12 cause I do not love you ? God knows. But what I am doing 
I shall keep on doing, that I may cut off their outlet who are 
desirous of an outlet 3 that, wherein they boast, they may be 

13 found on a level with us. For men of this sort are false 
Apostles, 'crafty workmen/ assuming the guise of Apostles 

14 of Christ. And no wonder; for Satan himself assumes the 

1 KaTavaptcav, 'benumb,' from vdpKt}, torpor (whence 'narcotic') ; cf. Aristoph. 
Wasps, 713 f« ' otfioi t tI irod' &<xirep vdpKrj fiov /card rijs x ci P^ Karax e ' TCU > l K0 ^ T ^ 
£i<po$ ov Stfva/tai Kar^x ei - V < *^' ^V HoiXdaicds el/ju, ' Why is a numbness poured upon 
my hand? I cannot grip my sword.' The verb occurs in N. T. only here and 
xii. 13, 14 ; and it is said to have been one of Paul's Cilician provincialisms (cf. 
Hieronym. Algas., Quasi, x.). 

* (ppdyrjaerai, cf. Rom. iii. 19; Heb. xi. 33. (ppdfaeiv, 'block up,' e.g.) a 
stream (cf. Herod, n. 99), the entrance of a harbour (cf. Thuc. IV. 13). 

• d<popfX'qv (cf. p. 215), continuing the metaphor of 01J (ppiyijaerai. 



xii. 4°. 
Cf. Mt. v. 
39- 



332 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

15 guise of an angel of light. It is therefore nothing great if his 
ministers also assume a guise as ministers of righteousness. 
Their end will be according to their works. 

Apology It was more particularly on the score of his preaching 

for boast- w ithout remuneration that the Judaists had branded the 

cf. ver. 1. Apostle with the insulting epithet of ' senseless.' He has 

already scornfully alluded to it ; and now after his merciless 

castigation of his critics he reverts to it. They had his 

answer, and if they still called him ' senseless,' he would 

exercise his privilege and indulge in a little boasting — a 

senseless employment which they practised largely. And 

what boasting theirs was ! what arrogance ! what insolence ! 

Cf. Ac. xv. Not only had they enslaved the Corinthians by imposing 

10 ; Gai. v. Qn them the yoke of the Law and all its heavy burdens, but 

cf. Mt. they emulated the methods of the Jewish Rabbis — their 

xxiii. a. 

cf. mu. greedy exactions * and their tyrannous contumelies. They 
thought nothing, when one offended them, of smiting him 
on the face ; and if this seem incredible, it should be re- 
1 Tim. in. membered how by and by it was necessary for the Apostle 
3 ' l ' u 7 ' to require of an aspirant to the office of Overseer that he 
should not be ' ready with his fists,' and how, moreover, in 
later days corporal chastisement was inflicted not merely 
by abbots on their monks but D3' bishops on their inferior 
clergy. 2 If the Corinthians endured the insolence of the 
Apostle's Judaist traducers, surely they might have patience 
with a little boasting on his part, a little vindication of his 
title to honour. 

16 I repeat, let no one fancy me to be ' senseless ' ; or else 
even as ' senseless ' accept me, that I too majr boast some 

17 little. Here it is not according to the Lord that I am 
talking, but as in ' senselessness,' in this well founded 

18 boasting. 3 Since many are boasting according to the flesh, 

1 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 414. 

2 Cf. Bingham, Antiq. vm. iii. 12: xvn. iv. 12. 

* ev TaiTrj ttj virocTacei rrts Kavxvcreios, 'in this standing-ground of boasting.' 
His boasting might be called ' senseless,' but it was really well founded, forocrraffts, 
properly ' underlying basis ' ; cf. Ps. lxix. 2 LXX : ive-n-dyrjv els l\iv dvdov K<xi ova 
HffTiv inrdaraais. Hence, as a philosophical term, the ' underlying reality ' of a 
thing, its 'substance,' substantia (cf. Heb. i. 3). So (1) 'assurance' objectively 
(cf. Heb. xi. 1) and (2) subjectively 'confidence,' the feeling of assurance (cf 
Heb. iii. 14 ; 2 Cor. ix. 4), 



THE THIRD MISSION 333 

19 1 shall do it too. For you are sweetly patient with the 

20' senseless/ having your own senses about you. You are 

patient if one enslaves you, if one devours you, if one 

' catches ' you, 1 if one gives himself lofty airs, if one strikes 

you on the face. 

And now he makes his boast. His enemies sneered at his His heroic 
forbearing gentleness, so conspicuous during his hasty visit m,mstry - 
to Corinth, and called it ' weakness/ construing it as a con- 
fession that he lacked apostolic authority ; and he retorts 
that he had more reason for ' boldness ' than any of them. 
Which of the Judaists could claim a purer lineage than his ? 
They boasted themselves ' Hebrews ' — members of the 
chosen race : ' Israelites ' — members of the theocracy ; 
' the seed of Abraham ' — heirs of the Promise : all these 
dignities were Ins no less than theirs. And in the matter 
of service to the cause of Christ, which of them had a record 
like his ? He recites his experiences as a missionary of the 
Cross — his ' moving accidents by flood and field/ his toils, 
his persecutions, his privations. It is a long catalogue that 
he gives, yet, as he remarks, it was incomplete. He could 
not tell the whole story, and even the history of the Book 
of Acts omits much. It says nothing, for example, of his 
five scourgings in Jewish synagogues, of two of his three 
floggings by Roman lictors, or of his three shipwrecks and 
his drifting on a broken spar. Only a meagre record of his 
ordeals has survived, and the heaviest of them all was one 
which could not be written — his ceaseless solicitude for the 
welfare of his churches. His letters are its best memorial, 
yet how inadequate it is ! His extant letters are the merest 
fragments of his voluminous correspondence : had it all 
survived, it would fill a library. 

21 I am speaking self -disparagingly, supposing that we have 
been ' weak ' ; but, whatever ground any one has for ' bold- 
ness ' — it is in ' senselessness ' that I am speaking — I have it too. 

22 Are they Hebrews ? So am I. Are they Israelites ? So am 
23 1. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they 

ministers oi Christ ? (It is in very ' madness ' that I am 
talking.) So am I still more than they. My toils outnumber 

1 Referring to the charge that he had 'caught them by craft' (xii. 16). The 
Judaists caught them with violent hands. 



Cf. Ac. xiv 
19 



334 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

theirs ; my imprisonments outnumber theirs ; my stripes have 

been more severe ; I have been many a time at death's 

Cf. Ac. xvi. 24 door. At Jewish hands I five times got forty lashes save one ; * 

**• |3« _. w 25 thrice I was beaten by the lictors' rods ; once I was stoned ; 

thrice I was shipwrecked ; a night and a day I have drifted on 

26 the deep. 2 My journeyings have been many; I have faced 

dangers in fording rivers, dangers of brigands, dangers from 

my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, 

Cf. 1 Th. dangers in the wild, dangers at sea, dangers among false 

••{ 9 8* 2 Th ' 27 brothers. I have borne toil and moil ; I have kept vigil 

many a time, have hungered and thirsted, have fasted many a 

28 time, have suffered cold and nakedness. Besides all else that 
I omit, there is my daily besetment — my anxiety for all the 

29 churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak ? Who is made 
to stumble, and my heart is not fired ? 

His visions It was a moving story. Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous 
Sons™* " pitiful.' It showed his ' weakness/ but not the sort of weak- 
ness which his enemies imputed to him. It was heroic weak- 
ness. Boasting was distasteful to him, but if he must boast, 
he would boast of that record of ' weakness ' ; and God 
knew it was all true. At the same time he had another and 
higher ground for boasting in the marvellous revelations 
which the Lord had vouchsafed him. 

30 If boast I must, it is of the things which show my ' weak- 

31 ness ' that I shall boast. The God and Father of the Lord 
Jesus knows — He who is blessed evermore — that I am not 

Cf. Ac. ix. 32 lying. (At Damascus the governor under King Aretas was 
23 ~ 25 ' 33 guarding the city of the Damascenes to apprehend me, and 

through a window I was lowered in a hamper through the 
xti. 1 wall and escaped his hands.) 3 Boast I must — indeed it 

is unprofitable, but I shall come to visions and revelations 

of the Lord. 

Two He cites two transcendent and ever memorable experiences 

which had befallen him in the course of the nine years which 



ineffable 
experi- 
ences. 



1 Forty lashes and no more were the punishment prescribed by the Law (cf. 
Dt. xxv. 2, 3) ; and by a later ordinance the fortieth was omitted lest the limit 
should be exceeded through an error in enumeration. Cf. Wetstein. 

8 Cf . the experience of Josephus when in the course of his voyage to Rome his 
ship foundered in the Adriatic : irepl £%a,Ko<rlovs rbv dpiOfibv 6vres dS 8\tjs t^ vvkt6s 
ivrj^dficda {Vit. 3). 

* A manifest interpolation, interrupting the argument. Most probably another 
marginale — a note entered by the Apostle on the margin after the letter was 
written as an example of 'dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, 
dangers in the city ' (ver. 26). 



THE THIRD MISSION 335 

he had spent in his native Province between his conversion 
and his commission as Apostle of the Gentiles. 1 That was 
a heart-stirring period, and his soul, employed in earnest 
meditation and heavenly communion, had been marvellously 
visited. What happened remained mysterious to him, and 
he describes it in the religious language of his day. The 
Jewish imagination pictured not one heaven but seven — The 
' the heavenly regions ' as they were designated. The Heavens, 
lowest was denominated ' the Veil ' ; and it was gloomy, ^j: l 6 St 
' since it beholds all the unrighteous deeds of men.' In the ml 10, vi. 
second, ' the Firmament/ are ' fire, snow, and ice made x 
ready for the Day of Judgment.' In the third, ' the Clouds/ 
are the angelic hosts ordained for the Day of Judgment. 
In the fourth, ' the Habitation/ are thrones and dominions, Cf. Coi. i. 
always praising God. In the fifth, ' the Dwelling/ are the J a ' It p ' 
angels who carry the prayers of men to ' the angels of the 
presence of the Lord/ who in turn present these before the 
Throne. In the sixth, ' the Place/ are ' the archangels, 
who minister and make propitiation to the Lord for all the 
sins of ignorance of the righteous.' The seventh was Araboth, 
' the Broad Fields/ or Paradise, ' the Garden.' It was ' the * Ki. via. 
Heaven of Heavens ' ; and there ' dwelleth the Great Glory, 
far above all holiness.' a 

It was thus that the Jewish mind envisaged the Unseen a vision of 
Universe, and the Apostle employs the familiar imagery to Heaven, 
express his ineffable visions. The first was an elevation to 
' the Third Heaven ' ; and this, since the Third Heaven 
was the abode of ' the angelic hosts ordained for the Day of 
Judgment/ would be a terrible vision of the righteousness 
of God. What precisely it was that happened — whether 

1 Cf. p. 62. 

* Cf. Test. XII Patriarch., Levi, II, in. The Rabbinical designations of the 
Seven Heavens were (i) ffp% Latin velum, 'the Veil'; (2) yip% 'the 

Firmament' (cf. Gen. i. 6, 7, 8 ; Ps. xix. 1) ; (3) D*pntS>, 'the Clouds' (cf. Job 

xxxvii. 18, xxxviii. 37) ; (4) ^JQf, 'the Habitation' (cf. Ps. xlix. 14; Is. lxiii. 15; 

Hab. iii. 11) ; (5) pyft, 'the Dwelling' (cf. Pss. xxvi. 8, lxviii. 5 ; Dt. xxvi. 15) ; 

(6) fDD, 'the Place' (cf. Ps. xxxiii. 14; Ex. xv. 17); (7) flim 'the Broad 

Fields' (cf. Ps. lxviii. 4) or D;H3 {rapddcwas), 'Paradise,' 'the Garden' 'or 

'Pleasance' (cf. Neh. ii. 8; Eccl. ii. 5 ; Song iv. 13). 



36 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



A vision of 
Paradise. 



Cf. Lk. 

xxiii. 43 ; 
Rev. ii. 7. 



Why he 
would not 
boast : 



(1) His 
sense of 
unworthi- 

ness. 



he was rapt away bodily or his soul parted from his body 
and conversed in the Unseen while his body remained in- 
animate on earth— he confesses that he knew not, warning his 
readers, as St. Chrysostom remarks, against futile curiosity. 

2 I know a man in Christ fourteen years ago — whether in the 
body I know not, or out of the body I know not : God knows — 
such a man rapt away as far as the Third Heaven. 

This experience was followed by another more wonderful 
and more gracious. It was an elevation to Paradise ; and, 
since Paradise is ' the dwelhng-place of the Great Glory ' or, 
in Christian language, the abode of God and the Glorified 
Lord and His redeemed, this was no mere ecstasy. It was a 
revelation of the Risen Christ. The Apostle saw Him and 
heard His voice. 

3 And I know such a man — whether in the body or parted 

4 from the body I know not : God knows — that he was rapt 
away into Paradise and heard ineffable words which a human 
being may not talk. 

One so transcendently privileged might justly have boasted, 
but it was not his high privileges that were his boast ; it was 
rather his weaknesses. And what was the reason why he 
was thus minded ? It was, in the first instance, a sense of 
his un worthiness. It is told of St. Francis of Assisi that one 
day, as he was returning from the forest where he had been 
in prayer, Brother Masseo to try his humility exclaimed : 
1 Why after thee ? Why after thee ? . . . Thou art neither 
comely nor learned, nor art thou of noble birth. How is it, 
then, that men go after thee ? ' ' Wouldst thou,' was the 
answer, ' learn the reason ? Know that it is because the 
Lord, who is in heaven, who sees the evil and the good in 
all places — because, I say, His holy eyes have not found 
among men a more wicked, a more imperfect, or a greater 
sinner than I am ; and to accomplish the wonderful work 
which He intends doing, He has not found a creature more 
vile than I am on earth ; for this reason He has chosen me, 
to confound force, beauty, greatness, birth, and all the science 
of the world, that man may learn that every virtue and every 
good gift comes from Him, and not from the creature ; that 



THE THIRD MISSION 337 

none may glory before Him ; but if any one glory, let him 
glory in the Lord, to whom belongeth all glory in eternity.' * 
And even such was the thought of the Apostle, His high 
privileges were of the Lord's amazing and unmerited grace, 
and they belonged not to himself. It was not himself, so 
weak and worthless, that had been so highly honoured ; and 
therefore, when he tells the story, he tells it as of another : 
' I know a man in Christ rapt away.' 

5 On such a man's behalf I shall boast, but on my own behalf 

6 1 shall not boast except in my weaknesses. If I desire to 

boast, I shall not be ' senseless,' for it is truth that I shall be 

telling ; but I refrain, lest any one should reckon to my 

account more than he sees in me or hears from me. 

And, moreover, he had been taught a needful and salutaty ( 2 ) His 
lesson. He had been in danger, after those transcendent <thorn - 
experiences, of spiritual pride, and he had been delivered 
by the Lord's stern mercy. In the course of his first mission 
he had been stricken by that distressing malady which ever 
since had clung to him, humbling him in the sight of the world 
and thwarting his purposes ; and for a while it had seemed 
to him an emissary of Satan, the Enemy of the Gospel. He 
had carried it to the Throne of Grace and repeatedly prayed 
for its removal ; but his request had always been denied. 
At length he had bowed to the Lord's will ; and no sooner 
had he accepted his affliction in loving trust than it was trans- 
figured. What had appeared a frustration of his purposes 
was recognised as a hedge of thorns enclosing the way which 
the Lord would have him take and deterring him from futile 
paths of his own choosing. His weakness had proved his 
strength and his painful experience a gracious discipline. 
And now it seemed to him a very Shekinah, the Cloud of the 
Lord's presence overshadowing his life. 2 

7 And lest by the transcendence of the revelations I should 
be uplifted, 3 there was given me a thorn for my flesh, a mes- 

ssenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be uplifted. On 
this behalf I thrice besought the Lord that I might be rid of 

1 Fioretti di S. Francesco \ X. 
1 Cf. Append. III. 

* Reading with Tisch. e£ i/xov. Kal rr\ virepj3o\rj t&v 6.iroKot.\v\peiov iva fi+i 
vircpalpufiai, which is the Western emendation of an evidently corrupt passage. 

y 



338 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

git. And He has said to me: 'My grace suffices you; for 
power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly then will I rather 
boast in my weaknesses, that the Cloud of Christ's Power may 
10 overshadow me. 1 Wherefore I am well pleased in weaknesses, 
in contumelies, in necessities, in persecutions and straits on 
Christ's behalf ; for when I am weak, then it is that I am 
powerful. 

a pained Here ends the Apostle's self- vindication, and he turns 
strance. fr° m it with relief. It had indeed been a ' senseless ' em- 
ployment, and his excuse was that it had been forced upon 
him by the Judaist aspersions. He would have been spared 
the odious task had the Corinthians rated these at their 
proper worth. His apostolic ministry among them was a 
sufficient evidence of his apostleship ; and if it was a grievance 
with them that he had never exacted remuneration from them, 
he craved their pardon, but he would promise no amendment. 
He contemplated paying them a third visit, and he would 
Cf. xi. ii. then pursue his accustomed course. Not, he playfully re- 
peats, that he did not love them ; on the contrary, they 
were his spiritual children, and he would perform a father's 
part by them, grudging no sacrifice. And what of the base 
insinuation that he was making a good thing of the collec- 
tion for the poor at Jerusalem, and his forgoing remuneration 
was a mere blind ? Its refutation was that in this business 
he had never had any personal dealings with them. It had 
been negotiated by Titus and his companion-delegate of 
the Church of Antioch. 2 They were his deputies, and their 
conduct had been irreproachable. 

ii I have proved ' senseless ' : it was you that compelled me. 
I ought to have been commended by you ; for nothing inferior 

iva iiri<TK7)u<l}<rr} iir y efik t\ bvva.jj.Li tov Xpurrov. Later Jewish theology was 
dominated by the thought of Divine Transcendence, and the idea was jealously 
guarded by the Targumists. An example of their devices is their manipulation of 
those O. T. passages which speak of the Lord as 'dwelling (p£>) with men.' 

They coined the noun n^D^j and employed a reverential periphrasis. Thus in 

Ex. xxv. 8 Onqelos has : ' I will cause My Shekinah to rest among them. ' The 
Shekinah was the Cloud of the Lord's Presence which had accompanied the 
Israelites in the Wilderness and overshadowed the Mercy-seat j and it was 
represented in Greek, on the strength of the assonance, by o-Krjvf], <tktjv6u} (cf. 
Rev. xxi. 3, vii. 15 ; Jo. i. 14). Cf. The Atonement in the Light of History and 
the Modern Spirit ', p. 162 9 Cf. p. 234. 



THE THIRD MISSION 339 

was I to ' the superlative Apostles,' though I am nothing. 
13 The signs of an Apostle were wrought among you in unflagging 
13 endurance by signs and portents and powers. For what dis- 
advantage is there that you were put to above the rest of the 
churches, except that I personally never cramped you ? 
14 Forgive me this injustice! Look you, this is now the third 
time that I am ready to visit you, and I will not cramp you ; 
for it is not your money that I am seeking but yourselves. 
It is not the children that should store up for the parents ; 

15 it is the parents that should store up for the children. And 
for my part most gladly will I spend and be spent to the utter- 
most on your souls' behalf. If I love you more abundantly, 

16 am I to be the less beloved ? So be it ; I was never a burden 
on you, but I was all the while ' a trickster ' and ' caught you 

17 by craft.' Is there any of the deputies I have sent to you 

1 8 through whom I overreached you ? I enlisted Titus and 
deputed the brother to accompany him : did Titus in anything 
overreach you ? Did we not comport ourselves by the same 
spirit ? Did we not tread the same path ? 

And now the Apostle closes with some plain yet affection- An ex- 
ate speaking. First he corrects a possible misapprehension P lanatlon - 
in the minds of the Corinthians. His letter was not a 
personal apologia ; else it would not have been addressed 
to them, since God alone was his Judge. It was a call to 
repentance, and his only personal concern was their welfare. 

19 You have been fancying all this while that we are making 
our defence to you. It is before God in Christ that we are 

20 talking, and it is all, beloved, for your upbuilding. My fear 
is that I may come and find you not what I desire, and that I 
may be found for you what you do not desire ; that there 
may be strife, jealousy, frenzies, intrigues, slanders, whisper - 

2iings, windy braggings, disorders ; that on my return my God 
may humble me among you, and I may have to mourn many 
of those who have sinned in the past and never repented for 
the uncleanness and fornication and sensuality which they 
practised. 

Continued obduracy would have serious and distressing a warning, 
consequences. He contemplated a third visit to Corirtfh, 
and he reiterates the intimation which he had left with them 
on the painful occasion of his last visit. On his return, unless 
the situation had been meanwhile amended, he would take 
severe measures. He would arraign the offenders and deal 
with them no longer in the way of remonstrance but by 



340 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

judicial process, leading evidence and pronouncing sentence. 
Thus he would furnish the proof which was desiderated that 
he was indeed an Apostle, and that, while one with Christ 
in the weakness of His incarnate Humiliation, he was one 
with. Him also in the power of His glorious Exaltation. 

Dt. xix. 15. xiii. 1 This is the third visit that I am paying you : ' at the 
mouth of two witnesses and three shall every word be 

2 established/ I have given warning, and that warning 
which I gave when I was with you the second time, I repeat 
now when I am far away, to those who have sinned in the 
past and to all the rest, that if I come back, I shall not 

3 spare, since you are seeking proof 1 that it is Christ who 
talks in me. He is not ' weak ' toward you ; no, He is 

4 powerful among you. For though it was weakness that 
brought Him to the Cross, yet He lives by God's power ; 
and though we are weak in Him, yet by God's power we 

5 shall share His life in dealing with you. Try yourselves 
whether you are in the Faith ; put yourselves to proof. 
Or have you no clear recognition regarding yourselves that 
Jesus Christ is in you ? He is, unless indeed you be 

6 counterfeits. I hope you will recognise that we are no 

7 counterfeits ; but our prayer to God is that you do nothing 
evil, not that we may show good coin, but that you may 

8 ring true though we should be as counterfeits. For it is 
not against the Truth that we have any power but only on 

9 the Truth's behalf. We are glad when we are weak and 
you are powerful ; this is also our prayer — your knitting 

10 together. 2 Therefore it is that I am writing thus when 
far away, that when with you I may not handle you 
cf. x. 8. severely in the exercise of the authority which the Lord 

gave me for upbuilding and not for downpulling. 

Titus the The business of conveying the letter to Corinth and not 

thektter mere ty presenting it to the Church but enforcing its appeal 

was a difficult office, demanding both courage and tact, 

cf. 2 cor. qualities which are seldom combined. Happily a competent 

i 3 -il ; vu " delegate was available in Titus, that young Antiochene who 

had been attached to the mission as superintendent of the 

Gentile collection for the poor at Jerusalem, and who had 

acquitted himself so successfully when with his colleague 

he visited Corinth in its interest some two years previously.* 

He was a young man, and on that occasion it was not without 

1 Cf. n. on 1 Th. v. 21, p. 165. 

* Cf. n. on 1 Th. iii. 10, p. 161. $ Cf. p. 234. 



THE THIRD MISSION 341 

reluctance that he had faced the ordeal, and it was only the 
Apostle's encouragement that had conquered his diffidence, 1 
It was a still harder ordeal that he was now called to encounter, 
and he would doubtless dread it. Nevertheless he faced it 
stoutly. Its very difficulty was a challenge, and how nobly 
he met it the event proves. 



Ac. xix. 23 

41 ; 2 Cor. 

i. 8-10; 
ttj Ac. xx. 1 ; 

1 v a Cor. ii. 

12, 13; vii 

RETREAT TO MACEDONIA KJrfL*" 

n-14. 
It was toward the close of the year 55 when the letter was Riot at 

despatched to Corinth ; and thereafter the Apostle resumed K P hesus - 
his ministry at Ephesus. His design was to remain in the 
Asian Capital until the ensuing May, but it was presently 
overruled by a distressing denouement. His situation had 
for some time been difficult, and six months previously in cf. 1 cor. 
his second letter to Corinth he had referred to the dangers XV1, 9- 
which beset him. It was the animosity of the heathen 
populace which then threatened him ; and so far from 
abating it had increased, and now it culminates in an out- 
break of violence. 

The grievance was ostensibly religious, but in fact it was Grievance 
commercial. The worship of Artemis had created an ex- °^Jj£ 
tensive and lucrative industry, especially in the manufacture smiths. 
and sale of silver models of the celebrated Temple ; 2 and 
this had been seriously curtailed by the progress of Chris- 
tianity not alone in the city but throughout the Province. 3 
It was natural that the craftsmen and merchants whose 
interests were involved should take alarm ; and their 
resentment found vent when Demetrius, a silversmith who 
employed numerous workmen, convened the latter, probably 

1 Cf. 2 Cor. xii. 18 : irapeKaXcva Tlrov, 'I exhorted' or 'encouraged Titus.' 

2 Cf. p. 227. 

3 Here as at Philippi (cf. pp. 129 ff.) it was when their worldly interests were 
affected that the Gentiles opposed the Gospel. And similarly it was its interfer- 
ence with trade, especially the sale of sacrificial victims, that provoked the 
persecution in the Province of Bithynia during the reign of Trajan (cf. Plin. 
Epist. x. 10 



342 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

in their guildhall, and represented the seriousness of the issue 
were Paul suffered to pursue his propaganda and discredit 
the worship of the Great Goddess. It was an appeal to 
self-interest in the name of religion, and it fired the assem- 
blage. They raised the cry ' Great Artemis of the Ephesians !' 
— the accustomed acclamation at sacred processions ; x and 
it was taken up by the populace. An excited mob surged 
through the streets, headed by Demetrius and his craftsmen, 
cf. Ac xx. They would have seized Paul but he happened to be out of 
cf. coi. iv. the way, and they found two of his associates, Gaius of Derbe 
io, ii. an( j Aristarchus, a Jewish Christian of Thessalonica who was 
then at Ephesus perhaps as a delegate from the troubled 
churches of Macedonia. 2 They laid hands on both and 
tumultuously dragged them to the theatre, the customary 
scene of popular gatherings. 3 Tidings of their predicament 
reached the Apostle, and he would have hastened to their 
support had he not been restrained at once by the remon- 
strance of his followers and by the authority of some of the 
Asiarchs 4 who, concerned both for his safety and for the 
preservation of order, sent him a message to keep away. 
fhetheatre. ^e t nea t re was meanwhile a scene of wild confusion. 
The rabble had merely caught up the cry of Demetrius and 
his company, and concluded that some affront had been 
offered to their goddess ; but what it might be they did not 
know, and various theories were bandied about. The Jews 
in the assemblage took alarm lest the blame should be 
attached to them on the score of their general unpopularity 
and their notorious antipathy to image-worship ; and so 
they prompted one of their number named Alexander to 

1 According to the reading of Cod. Bez. (D)* in vers. 28, 34, fMeyAXt) "Apre/xis 

2 The best attested reading in Ac. xix. 29 is MaKeddvas, making Gaius and 
Aristarchus both Macedonians and differentiating the former from Gaius of Derbe 
(cf. xx. 4). Several MSS., however, have , kpiarapxov MaKedova, ' Aristarchus a 
Macedonian' — a probable reading, Ma/ce56^as being dittographic. <tw£k5->]/aqs 
apparently denoted a deputy appointed by his church to travel with the Apostle 
to Jerusalem in connection with the collection for the poor (cf. 2 Cor. viii. 19) ; 
and Aristarchus is so designated here by anticipation, since the Macedonians had 
not yet made their collection (cf. 2 Cor. ix. 2, 3). 

3 Wetstein. Cf. the horrible story of a popular atrocity in the theatre of 
Ephesus in Philostr. Apoll. Tyan. IV. 10. 

4 Cf. p. 225. 



THE THIRD MISSION 343 

protest their innocence. 1 He essayed to address the crowd, 
but when they recognised him for a Jew, they would not 
listen to him and shouted as with one voice : ' Great Artemis 
of the Ephesians ! ' 

For two hours the uproar continued, until the town-clerk The town 
arrived on the scene. His appearance calmed the tumult, invention. 
and he remonstrated with the rabble. It was quite un- 
necessary for them, he represented, to protest their devotion 
to the Great Goddess. Her honour was safe, and Gaius and 
Aristarchus had never impugned it. If Demetrius and his 
craftsmen had any grievance, they could obtain redress in 
the law-courts. And such tumultuary proceedings were 
dangerous : they were an affront to the majesty of Roman 
law, and they would be sternly handled. It was a salutary 
reminder, and the mob dispersed. 

The riot was ended, but the hostility against the Apostle Paul's de- 
remained unabated. It was very bitter. He was menaced Troas* to 
with actual violence. His lodging was attacked, and his p* 2 Cor - 
host and hostess, Aquila and Prisca, shared his peril. It cf. Rom. 
seemed to him a veritable miracle that he survived. By the XV1, 3i 4 * 
mercy of God and the help of his friends he escaped from the 
city and got away by sea. He did not go alone. Timothy cf. a Cor. 
accompanied him, and so apparently did the Ephesians *'* : Ac " xx ' 
Tychicus and Trophimus as well as Aristarchus of Thessa- 
lonica and Gaius of Derbe. His intention had been that on 
leaving Ephesus he should proceed to Macedonia and thence 
betake himself to Corinth ; and now that his departure had 
been so rudely precipitated he adhered to his plan, all the 
more that he would thus meet Titus on his return journey and 
learn how his mission had prospered. It was the month of 

1 The best attested reading (ver. 33) is (rwe/Si/JcKrav, 4 instructed ' (cf . 1 Cor. ii. 
16). The subject is iic tov 8x\ov, sc. npes (cf. Jo. vii. 40, xvi. 17 ; Rev. xi. 9 
'some of the multitude,' and the parenthesis v pofiakbvTuv airbu rdv 'lovdalwv 
explains who these were. T. R. Trpoefilfiaaav (cf. Mt. xiv. 8), 'they advanced 
Alexander out of the multitude,' means that his co-religionists put him forward 
and the crowd hustled him to the front. Another variant is Karefilfiacravi 
detraxerunt (Vulg.), evidently 'put him down out of the press into the arena.* 
If there were any reason for identifying him with ' Alexander the coppersmith ' 
who was so active in procuring Paul's condemnation at Rome (cf. 2 Tim. iv. 14), 
it might be supposed that he was one of Demetrius' craftsmen, and therefore 
qualified to explain the situation. 



44 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Cf. 2 Cor. 
ii. 12. 

Removal 
to Mace- 
donia. 
Cf. 2 Cor. 
ii. 13. 



Cf. 2 Cor. 
vii. 5. 



A healing 

ministr5 r . 

Cf. 2 Cor. 
viii. 18. 

Cf. Ac. xx. 

2. 

Cf. 2 Cor. 

vii. 5. 



Cf. viii, x- 
4- 



January, and there was meanwhile no direct communication 
between Ephesus and Macedonia. Not until spring could 
ships venture out on the broad ^Egean ; but he found a 
coasting vessel bound for Troas, and he sailed thither. That 
seaport lay on the route which Titus must follow, and Paul 
awaited him there with the less impatience that an unex- 
pected opportunity presented itself for preaching the Gospel. 

Time passed, and still Titus never appeared ; and at length 
the Apostle could no longer repress his anxiety and deter- 
mined to push forward to Macedonia. It would be early 
summer when he left Troas, and he would follow the f amiliar 
route of the autumn of the year 50, 1 sailing to Neapolis and 
settling at Philippi. There he would receive a gracious 
welcome from the friends who had cherished him in affection- 
ate remembrance and repeatedly succoured him in his need ; 
and he would meet Luke, ' the beloved physician/ whom he 
had left there at the close of the year 50 and who had minis- 
tered there ever since. 2 It was a glad reunion ; nevertheless 
he was confronted by a situation which oppressed his already 
overburdened spirit. The controversy which the Judaist 
propagandists had excited in Macedonia in the course of 
their mischievous progress from Galatia to Achaia was 
still raging, and he had to address himself to its settle- 
ment with anxiety for Corinth gnawing at his heart all the 
while. 

It was a large and difficult task, but he was effectively 
reinforced by his followers from Ephesus and more especially 
by Luke who was known and beloved all over the Province. 
In their company he passed from town to town, visiting the 
distracted churches and allaying the strife. He encountered 
fierce opposition, since there was no abatement of the Jewish 
hostility which had threatened his life at Thessalonica and 
Beroea five years previously ; nevertheless his efforts pre- 
vailed, and by the autumn he had not merely restored peace 
but engaged the churches in zealous support of the collection 
for the poor at Jerusalem. In Macedonia as in Galatia that 
generous enterprise served to heal the estrangement of the 
Jewish and Gentile Christians. 8 



1 Cf. p. 126. 



» Cf. p. 135. 



Cf. p. 224. 



THE THIRD MISSION 345 

It was now the month of September, 1 and the Apostle's success of 
cup of gladness was filled to overflowing by the arrival of ^SSion 
Titus, bringing good news from Corinth. His mission had v -:i. 6-i6. 
been crowned with complete and triumphant success. He 
had delivered the Apostle's letter, so stern yet so compassion- 
ate, and had reinforced it by his personal appeal. The 
Corinthians, already assailed with misgivings, had been over- 
come. They had recognised the unreasonableness of their 
lawless attitude and the gravity of the issues which it in- 
volved ; and when he reminded them how much they owed 
to the Apostle and told them how sorely they had grieved 
him, they were overwhelmed with shame, and addressed 
themselves in good earnest to the business of reformation. 
The fons et origo mali was that flagrant scandal which had 
emerged a year previously, and which the Apostle had so cf. 1 Cor. 
sternly condemned, requiring that disciplinary proceedings v ' 3 " s> 
should be instituted against the offender. It had, however, 
been thrust out of sight by the ensuing controversies, and the 
culprit had hitherto gone free. He was now arraigned, and 
he was unanimously condemned. Thus far there was no 
divergence of sentiment. All recognised his guilt, but a ci 2 Cor. 
difference arose on the question of his punishment. Some "■ 6> 7 - 
advocated extreme severity ; and these were doubtless the 
Apostle's party, who had throughout stood loyal to him and 
now desired to honour him by a complete and unqualified 
execution of his original mandate. But there were others 
who favoured a more lenient sentence. It appears that the 
offender shared the general repentance. He confessed and 
mourned his sin, and it seemed right that he should be 
pardoned and suffered to continue in the Church's fellowship. 
This counsel was approved by the majority, but a minority 
remained dissatisfied and protested against the decision. 
And not without reason, since there were certain of the majo- 
rity who hardly realised the enormity of the offence. They 
condemned it indeed, but they were disposed to make 
light of it. 

1 Cf . Append. L 



346 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Fourth Letter to Corinth 
(2 Cor. i-ix, xiii. 11-14) 

The It is uncertain where precisely Titus found the Apostle. 

* f : €SS # It was in Macedonia, but whether at Philippi 1 or some other 
of the Macedonian cities does not appear. Wherever it may 
have been, his tidings were right welcome. Paul was already 
rejoicing in the happy termination of the Macedonian trouble; 
and when he learned of his deputy's success at Corinth, his 
heart overflowed and he poured forth his gladness in a gracious 
letter to the penitent Church. By a felicitous coincidence it 
was the season of the Feast of Tabernacles, the joyous 
harvest thanksgiving, 2 and his heart kept festival, ' rejoicing 
according to the joy in harvest/ His last letter to Corinth 
he had written with his own hand, hiding the shame of his 
erring converts ; but concealment was now unnecessary, 
and he employed Timothy as his amanuensis. And, more- 
over, he addressed the letter not alone to the Church of 
Corinth but to ' all the saints in the whole of Achaia.' It 
was a chivalrous thought. The Corinthian scandal was 
notorious throughout the Province, and he would have the 
Church's repentance as widely published. And therefore he 
desired that his letter should be treated as an encyclical and 
circulated among the neighbouring Churches. 3 

i. 1 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus through God's will, and 

Timothy the brother, to the Church of God which is at 

2 Corinth with all the saints in the whole of Achaia. Grace to 

you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus 

Christ. 

Distress He begins with a glad thanksgiving. The penitent 

fbrt. 001 "* Corinthians had apparently expressed through Titus their 

sorrow not only for the grief which they had occasioned him 

but for the tribulation which he had of late been experiencing 

at Ephesus. The latter was indeed, as he tells them, more 

1 According to the subscription : Trpbs Kopwdiovs devrtya iyp&ty) irb $i\iirvun> 
rrjs Ma/ceSovtas dia TLtov /ecu Aou/ca. 

* Cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. 300, 330 f. 

• E.g., Cenchrese (Rom. xvi. 1). Cf. p. 189. 



THE THIRD MISSION 347 

serious than they knew ; for it was after the departure of 
Titus for Corinth that the malice of his enemies had reached 
its height and driven him from the city. But now he could 
bless God for it all. His distress had been a sacred fellowship cf. Col l 
in the sufferings of Christ ; and if he had shared Christ's 3 * 
sufferings, so he had experienced also Christ's comfort, and 
had thus been better fitted for the task of comforting and 
confirming the Corinthians. 

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

4 the Father of compassions and the God of all comfort, who 
comforts us in all our distress in order that we may be able 
to comfort the distressed of all sorts through the comfort 

5 with which we are ourselves comforted by God. For, just as 
the sufferings of Christ overflow on us, so through Christ our 

6 comfort also overflows. And if we are distressed, it is for your 
comfort and salvation ; if we are comforted, it is for your 
comfort, which is put in operation by endurance of the same 

7 sufferings which we are experiencing. And our hope is firm 
on your behalf, since we know that, as you are partakers of the 

8 sufferings, you are partakers also of the comfort. For we do 
not wish you to be ignorant, brothers, of our distress which befell 
in Asia. Its weight was excessive, so overpowering that we 

9 despaired even of life ; nay, in our hearts we had come to the 
decision x that we must die, that our confidence might not 

xorest upon ourselves but upon God who raises the dead. And 
from so terrible a death He rescued us and is rescuing us ; 2 
and we have set our hope in Him that He will rescue us in the 

xi future also, while you also co-operate on our behalf by prayer, 
so that for the blessing which they have played a part in 
winning for us, 3 thanks may be rendered by many on our 
behalf. 

1 d7r6/c/)t/io, an official decision (cf. Moulton and Milligan, Vocab.). icx^ Ka ^ iV t 
aoristic perf. (cf. ii. 13, vii. 5). The perf. of 2x w was thus used since the aor. 
tax QV bad acquired the meaning 'got,' 'received' (cf. i. 15). Cf. Moulton, 
Proleg., p. 145. 

8 ptercu D C EFGKLM, Vulg., Ambrstr. pfaerai, though strongly attested 
(KBCP), is hardly possible with the future following. It is the emendation of a 
copyist who failed to perceive that Paul is referring to his immediate dangers in 
Macedonia (cf. vii. 5). 

8 4k iroXXQv irpoa&Triovy 'from many actors,' connected with rb x^^A"** 
Tpocuirov, (1) 'face,' (2) 'mask,' particularly an actor's mask (cf. persona), 
(3) an actor, dramatis persona, (4) an actor on the stage of life, i.e., 'a person' — 
a late use. The word may here be taken in the sense of 'face,' e/c ttoWQp 
Trpwjihiruiv being then connected with d>xapi(rTr)9rj — 'that thanksgiving may be 
made from many faces,' the glad faces bespeaking grateful hearts. 



1 



48 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



The The Apostle had merited their affection. He could claim 

constant with a clear conscience that his devotion to them had never 
aftection. wa vered. The tenderness which he was now expressing was 
no new thing. Even when he had dealt sternly with them, 
it had been ever present alike in his correspondence and in 
his personal intercourse, as some of them had always per- 
ceived and, as he hoped, they would all henceforth recognise. 

13 For this is our boasting — the testimony of our conscience 
that it was in God-given holiness and sincerity, not in carnal 
wisdom but in God's grace, that we conducted ourselves in 

13 the world and most of all in relation to you. For it is nothing 
else that we are writing to you than what you know from our 
letters or indeed from personal recognition — and I hope you 

14 will recognise our disposition to the full, 1 as indeed you have 
done in a measure — that we are your boast, even as you are 
ours, on the Day of our Lord Jesus. 

Complaint What prompted this asseveration was the old grievance of 
£oken h^f ^ tardiness in visiting Corinth despite his promise. 2 He 
promise h a d already explained it in his second letter, but even yet, 
Corinth, in their longing to see him and demonstrate their newborn 
5-9° r ' xyi ' affection, they were inclined to think hardly of him. They 
were suspecting him of levity and of a disposition, after the 
way of the world, to play fast and loose with his promises. 

13 And it was with this confidence that I purposed formerly 

16 to visit you, that you might receive a second grace, and to 
pass by way of Corinth to Macedonia, and return from Mace- 
donia to you and be sent by you on my journey to Judaea. 

17 This, then, being my purpose, did I, as it has turned out, 
show levity ? Or are the plans I lay laid on the carnal prin- 
ciple that I may say with one breath ' Yes, yes ' and with 
the next ' No, no ' ? 3 

1 Iws reXovs, like eU reXos (cf. The Days of His Fksk, p. 436, n. 2), not 
'to the end' but 'to the full,' contrasted with a-rrb /lUpovi. 

1 Cf. p. 323- 

* The word of one who is guided by mere worldly wisdom, iv <ro<f>t<i erapKiKtf 
(ver. 12), is unreliable; it is 'Yes' to-day and 'No' to-morrow. On the 
emphatic iteration cf. Mt. v. 37. Chrys. (followed by Beng.) takes the second 
vai and the second oti as predicates (cf. Ja. v. 12) : 'that my "Yes" should be 
"Yes" and my "No" "No"' — an unalterable decision, regardless of providential 
eventualities. This is 'planning according to the flesh,' and it is the way of 
' the carnal man ' (6 <rapKt<bs dvOpuxos, tovt4<jtiv, 6 toU irapovci irpo<rr)\wfi(vos ko.1 
ec Totirois Siairavrbt &p kcu rrjs tov 1\v etfiaros htpyelas itcrbs rvyx&vwv) ; whereas 



THE THIRD MISSION 349 

He meets the insinuation with a flat denial : ' our word to a promise 
you is not " Yes " and " No " ' ; and then he dehcately in- oTthe ' 
dicates that the blame lay not with him but with themselves, ^j^ 13 
There are always two parties to a promise, and its fulfilment 
rests with both. Think, for example, of the promises of 
God. He says ' Yes ' in Christ, but is this enough ? Nay, 
it is faith that receives the promise ; and it is only when His 
' Yes ' is answered by our ' Amen ' that the promise is fulfilled. 
Perhaps indeed it is not fulfilled immediately, but in the 
grace of His Holy Spirit we have ' the earnest ' of its ultimate 
fulfilment. 

Here is a thought which the Apostle loved. The Greek 'The 
term is arrhabon, 1 and it signified the caution-money deposited ^Split.' 
on the conclusion of a bargain as a pledge of full payment in 
due course. 2 Originally a Phoenician word, it was naturally 
borrowed from that nation of merchants by the Hebrews, 
the Greeks, and the Romans. In the Apostle's day it was 
a common business-term, 3 precisely synonymous with the 
Scottish ' arles ' 4 and the Old English ' wedde ' 5 ; and he 
enlisted it in the service of the Gospel. The idea is that the 
operation of the Holy Spirit in our souls constitutes a guar- 

' the minister of the Spirit ' (6 vwijp^Trjt rod Tlveij/xaTos) is like a good slave who 
makes a promise to his fellow-slaves and then, finding that his master disapproves, 
does not fulfil it. So the Apostle's promise was conditioned by the will of God. 
This makes excellent sense, but it appears from vers. 18-20 that Ncu vai and Otf 00 
are merely reduplications. 

1 appaSuv, P2"1JJ (cf. Gen. xxxviii. 17, 18), arrhabo, arrha. 

* Suid. : i] iv rah Corah rrepl t&v (hvovixtvup SiSofitvn) irpuTr] Kara8o\rj virkp 
d(T0a\eiaj. 

8 Cf. Oxyrh. Pap. 299 (a letter of late i 8t c.) : 'As regards Lampon the mouse- 
catcher, I gave him as earnest-money (apaSQva) on your account 8 drachmse to 
catch the mice while they are still with young. 5 Also Milligan, Select. 45. 

* Cf. Scott, Redgauntlet, Letter XI : 'he had refused the devil's arles.' Abbot, 
chap. XI : ' St. Catherine broke up house-keeping before you had taken arles in 
her service.' 

5 Wycl. : 'a wedde (or ernes) of the spirit.' Chaucer, Knightes Tale, 12 18 : 
' Let him be war, his nekke lyth to wedde ! ' There was also a verb appadwvlletv, 
' hire ' or ' take into one's service.' As an ecclesiastical term it signified ' espouse ' ; 
and in Mod. Gk. t] appa3<jivi{a)<rixivT} is 'the betrothed' and y dppaBQva 'the 
engagement-ring' — an earnest of the full payment of the marriage-debt (cf. 
Moulton and Milligan, Vocab.). In the early Church sponsalitia arrhcB were 
presents which a man made to his betrothed as tokens and pledges of the 
espousal (cf. Bingham, Ant. xxti. iii. 3). 



35o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

antee of God's propriety in us and the ultimate consumma- 
cf. Eph. i. tion of His gracious design. It is His * seal ' marking us His, 
ct ptii a ^ oretaste °* our fc^ heritage, a pledge that the good work 
6. ' ' which He has begun in us, He will perfect until the Day of 
Rom. viii. Jesus Christ. It is ' the first-fruits of the Spirit,' the earliest 
23 ' sheaf of the rich harvest. 

18 But, as God is faithful, our word to you is not " Yes ' 

19 and ' No.' For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was 
proclaimed among you through us — through me and 
Silvanus and Timothy — did not prove ' Yes ' and ' No ' ; 

20 nay, it has proved 'Yes' in Him. For to every promise 
of God in Him is the ' Yes,' and therefore also through Him 

21 is the ' Amen ' that God may have glory through us. And 
He who is confirming us and you together in Christ and put 

22 His chrism on us, is God, who also sealed us and gave us 
the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. 

why he And just as our response to God's promises is the condition 
away. taye of their fulfilment, so it was with the Apostle's promise to 
the Corinthians. It was their behaviour that had prevented 
its fulfilment. While the trouble was in progress, he had 
pleaded the emergence in Asia of unexpected claims ; but 
there had been another and more potent reason, and now that 
the trouble was so happily ended, he was free to avow it. 
It was consideration for them that had kept him away. 
Had he visited them at that distressful crisis, he must have 
dealt sternly with them ; and he had remained away in the 
hope that wiser counsels would prevail among them. He had 
indeed been compelled eventually to pay them a hasty visit, 
Cf. 2 Cor. and it had confirmed his worst apprehensions. It was an 
xn. 19-xm. eX p er j ence w hi c h he would not willingly repeat, and so he 
had told them in the stern letter which he had written them 
on his return to Ephesus. That was indeed a stern letter, 
but it was love for them that had inspired it, and he had 
written it with a breaking heart. 

23 But I call God to witness, as my soul shall answer it, that 
it was by way of sparing you that I came no more to Corinth. 

24 Not that we have lordship over your faith ; no, we are 
helpers in working out your joy, for it is by faith that you 

ii. 1 stand fast. And this was my determination in my own 
interest, that I should not visit you again on a grievous 



THE THIRD MISSION 351 

a errand. For if I grieve you, then who is it that gladdens 

3 me but the man who has grief from me ? And I wrote 
precisely this, that I might not, when I came, receive grief 
from those who should have given me joy, confident as I 
was regarding a)l of you that my joy is the joy of you all. 

4 For out of great distress and anguish of heart I wrote to you 
through blinding tears, not that you might be grieved, but 
that you might perceive how my heart was full to over- 
flowing with love for you. 

This reference to his own sorrow was skilfully designed to Approval 
introduce the vexed question of the Church's decision on church's 
the case of immorality. It had been a disputed judgment, judgment 
and in approving it he at the same time deftly rebukes both case of im. 
the extreme parties. His sorrow had indeed been poignant, mor ty * 
but it was rather a vicarious than a personal sorrow. It was 
not himself but the Church that had been injured, and it 
was the Church that had been grieved, at all events, he adds, 
' in a measure/ ostensibly extenuating the culprit's offence 
yet withal suggesting that it were well had there been no 
extenuation, had the Church's grief been not merely partial 
but universal. Nevertheless the sentence was right. Cen- 
sure was sufficient, and the dissentients must acquiesce in 
the decision and admit the penitent to loving fellowship. 
They were the Apostle's friends, and they would best evince 
their loyalty to him by following his example in this particu- 
lar. Severity would only play into Satan's hands by driving 
the penitent to despair. 

5 But if some one has caused grief, it is not to me that he 
has caused it ; no, in a measure — not to be too hard on him — 

6 it is to you all. 1 Sufficient for such a man is this censure 
7 pronounced by the majority; so that you should reverse 

your attitude toward him and rather forgive and comfort 
him, lest such a man should be swallowed up by his excessive 

8 grief. And therefore I exhort you to assure him of your love ; 

9 for it is to this end indeed that I am writing, 2 that I may put 
you to the proof and discover whether you are obedient in 

10 every respect. One whom you forgive anything, I also 
forgive. For indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven 

1 dirb /x6povs anticipates virb tuiv wXeiovuv (ver. 6). The qualification has a 
double purpose : ( I ) to alleviate the responsibility of the offender ; (2) to rebuke 
the lax minority : the censure should have been unanimous. 

2 fypa^a, epistolary aorist. Cf. p. 219, 



352 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

ii anything, is on your account in the presence of Christ, that 
we may not be overreached by Satan ; for we do not ignore 
his devices. 

Titus' And now the Apostle resumes his personal narrative. 

cFf. 8-n. Driven from Ephesus he had betaken himself to Troas. His 
ministry there was successful, but all the while Corinth was 
in his thoughts, and he was wondering how Titus had fared 
and what report he would bring. Still Titus never appeared, 
and at length, that he might meet him the sooner, he had quitted 
Troas and passed over to Macedonia. There he had heard 
the joyful tidings ; and now, as he looks back on those days, 
so dark and troubled yet so rich in blessing to Troas and 
Macedonia, he recognises how God had been leading him all 
the while, and he breaks into a pgean of thanksgiving. He 
likens his experience to the magnificent pageant of a Roman 
triumph. 1 The victorious general, followed by his troops 
and preceded by his fettered captives, entered the city and 
rode in his chariot along the Via Sacra and up the slope of 
the Capitol to the Temple of Jupiter amid the applause of 
the spectators and the fragrance of floral garlands and the 
odour of incense from the altars in the open temples. 2 And 
just as the Apostle elsewhere boasts himself ' the slave ' and 
' the prisoner ' of Christ, so here he conceives of himself and 
his comrades as Christ's captives adorning His triumphal 
progress. He had been Christ's captive ever since the day 
when his rebellious will was broken on the road to Damascus ; 
and it was a blessed condition. For the Victor was Sovereign 
Love, and His dominion was liberty and peace. 

' I have no cares, O blessed Will ! 
For all my cares are Thine ; 
I live in triumph, Lord ! for Thou 
Hast made Thy triumph mine/ 

The captives were the conqueror's trophies, publishing his 
renown ; and even so the Apostle was a trophy of Christ, 

1 Ci. the descriptions of the triumphs of Pompey (Appian. BtlL Mith. lib, 
117). ^milius Paulus (Plut. ALm. Paul. 32-34), and Vespasian and Titus (Jos. 
De Bell. Jud. vn. v. 4-6). 

8 Cf. Plut. /Em. Paul. 32 : ras 5t vabs aviyKro kxl\ crtjdvuv koX 6vfj.tafxa.Tui> 
fy wX-f'ipTji. Hoy. Od. iv. ii. 51, 52. Dion Cass. Ixxiv. 1. 



THE THIRD MISSION 353 

and Christ's glory was the end of his ministry. His sufferings 
for Christ's sake were the odours which breathed on the 
Conqueror's path. They were ' a fragrance of Christ/ though 
to the world they seemed mere ignominy, even as, says 
St. Chrysostom, the light is darkness to weak eyes and honey 
bitter to distempered palates. 

12 And when I came to Troas to preach the Gospel of Christ, 

13 though a door had been opened for me in the Lord, I had no 
relief for my spirit through my not rinding Titus my brother. 

14 No, I bade them farewell and set out for Macedonia. But 
thanks to God who always leads us in His triumphal train 1 
in Christ and wafts the odour of His knowledge abroad through 

15 us in every place ! For we are a fragrance of Christ for God's 
honour among those who are on the way to salvation and 

16 among those who are on the way to ruin : to the latter an 
odour death-exhaled and death-exhaling, to the former an 
odour life-exhaled and life-exhaling. 

It was a tremendous claim, nothing less than this — that Efficacy 
the Apostle's ministry had an inherent and inevitable efficacy Apostle's 
whether for weal or for woe ; and now he proceeds to justify message, 
it. The efficacy lay in his message, inasmuch as it was the 
pure Word of God, unadulterated, like the teaching of the 
Corinthian intellectuals, with human wisdom or, like that 
of the Judaists, with dead tradition. Here he was not 
resuming the odious employment of self-commendation. 
There had been enough of that in his last letter, where he 
had perforce vindicated himself from the aspersions of the 
Judaists, and he would leave the graceless business to them. 
They had come to Corinth armed with letters of commenda- 
tion from their superiors at Jerusalem, but he needed no such 
credentials. His converts were his letter of commendation, 
a letter written by Christ, not with ink but with the Holy 
Spirit's grace. 

17 And for this who is qualified ? Well, we are not, like so 
many, adulterators of the wine of God's Word. No, it is in 

1 A, V. ' causeth us to triumph ' represents the Apostle and his companions as 
occupying the place of the honoured friends who sat beside the victor in his 
triumphal chariot (cf. Dion Cass. li. 16, lxiii. 20). This, however, is an impossible 
rendering, since dpta/x^tueiv is always 'lead in triumph.' Cf. Plut. Rom. 4: 
,5.i«rtXe?s i$pi<ifi^€v<re. Ant. 84 (Cleopatra to dead Antony) : /mj8' kv i/xoi irepild-Qt 
Qpio.^tvb^vov <rea>jTov 9 'suffer not thyself in my person to be led in triumph.' 
Z 



354 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

its purity, it is just as God gave it, that we speak it before 
iii. i God in Christ. 1 Are we beginning again to commend our- 
selves ? Or do we need, like some, commendatory letters 
* to you or from you ? You are our letter, inscribed on our 
3 hearts, recognised and read by all men, since it is manifest 
that you are a letter of Christ, ministered by us, inscribed 
Ex. xxxiv. not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on 

i- ' tablets of stone ' but on ' the tablets of the heart/ tablets 

Prov iii. 3, of flesh>2 



its twofold Here was the Apostle's answer to the question ' Who is 
' qualified for this t ' the justification of his claim that he was 
' a fragrance of Christ/ an odour life-exhaled and life-exhaling 
or death-exhaled and death-exhaling according to the atti- 
tude which men assumed toward him. The efficacy lay not 
in himself but in his message. And what was the tran- 
scendent excellence of his message ? It was twofold. 
(i) Amin- In the first place, it was, in the language of the Prophet 
xxm. 31-34. J ererrnan > t ne Gospel of ' a new covenant.' The Old Cove- 
nant was embodied in the Law, the written code of Mount 
Sinai. It was a series of stern and inexorable command- 
ments, and since these were too hard for weak and sinful man, 
it issued in condemnation and death. But the New Covenant 
is a covenant of grace. It is not a written code ; it is a 
ministry of the Spirit. It does not command ; it succours 
and strengthens, and it issues in life. 

4 And such is the confidence which we have through Christ 

5 toward God. Not that by our own resources we are qualified 

6 for any reasoning as proceeding from ourselves. No, our 
qualification proceeds from God, who also qualified us for 
the ministry of a New Covenant, not a written code but a 
Spirit ; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life. 

1 oi ydp, ellipt. : '(we are qualified), for we are not.' KdirrjXos, 'a trader,' 
especially 'an innkeeper' {caupo). Hence KcnrrjXeteiv (1) 'trade,' espeeially as an 
innkeeper {cauponari) ; (2) 'trade dishonestly,' especially as an innkeeper who 
adulterates his wine. Cf. Is. i. 22 LXX : to dpytipiov v/xQv dSoKifiov ol KairifKol 
gov jiiayovcn. top olvov vdari. Ecclus. xxvi. 29. 1% elXiKpivtas carries on the 
metaphor, according to the old and in no wise discredited etymology which 
explains dXucpivris as ' tested in the sunlight (el'X??) ' j the idea being that the glass 
of wine is held up against the light and no impurities are discovered by the 
searching rays. 

* The chief MSS. read irXa^lu icapdicus <rapidvcu$, ' hearts of flesh as tablets ' ; 
but T. R. rXal-l napSlas <rapidvais has the more ancient attestation of Iren. 
(y. xiii. 4), at all events according to the Latin translation. 



THE THIRD MISSION 355 

And, in the second place, it was a ministry of transcendent {^"j™*" 
and unfading glory. Here he bases his argument on that 
passage which relates how, when Moses descended from the Ex. xxxiv. 
Mount, bearing the two tablets of stone, ' the skin of his face 29 ' 35 " 
shone ' or, as the Septuagint Version has it, ' was glorified.' 
It was the lingering reflection of the glory which had shone 
upon him while he communed with the Lord ; and when 
they saw it, the people were afraid. That was only a transi- 
ent glory, and it quickly faded away ; but the glory of the 
New Covenant is permanent. It is no mere reflection on the 
face of a human mediator ; it is the divine glory which shines Cf. iv. 6. 
in the face of Jesus Christ — not a glorified but the glorifying 
face. 

7 And if the ministry of death, engraved on stones in written 
characters, was invested with glory, so that the children of 
Israel could not gaze on the face of Moses by reason of the glory 

8 of his face — the transient glory, how shall not rather the 

9 ministry of the Spirit be invested with glory ? For if the 
ministry of condemnation be glory, far rather does the ministry 

10 of righteousness abound in glory. For the glorified has been 
dimmed of its glory in this particular on account of the tran 

11 scendent glory. 1 For if the transient was attended with glory 
far rather is the permanent invested with glory. 

Here lay the inspiration of the Apostle's preaching. He Transience 
was proclaiming a full and abiding revelation, and it was covenant! 
fitting that he should use ' much boldness of speech.' The 
Gospel was the fulfilment of the Law, and the transience of 
the latter had appeared in the very hour of its promulgation. 
The glory which ht the face of Moses was a transient thing, a 
lingering reflection of the awful glory which had shone upon 
him while he communed with the Lord on the Mount. The 
people saw it while he talked with them, but he would not 
have them witness its disappearance lest they should think 
it meant that the Lord had forsaken him ; and so, ' whenever Ex. xxxiv. 
he had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face,' 33 * ' 
and took it off only ' when he went in before the Lord to 
speak with Him.' It was an attempt to conceal the transience 
of the Law, and the Jews had never to that day discovered 
it. The glory of the Old Covenant had faded before the 

' ' The glory of the New Covenant, overshadowing and hiding the glory of the 
Old, as the light of the sun that of the other stars ' (Euth. Zig. ). 



356 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

glory of the New as the light of the stars is quenched by the 
sunrise, but this they had not perceived. For their thoughts 
were dull. It was as" though a veil covered their heart, and 
just as they had not seen the glory fading from the face of 
Moses, so they had not seen it fading from the Law. The}' 
did not recognise that a new glory had dawned, nor would 
they recognise it till they turned from the written code to 
the life-giving Spirit. As it was only ' when Moses went in 
before the Lord to speak with Him ' that the ' veil was taken 
from his face/ so only when their heart turned to the Lord, 
would its veil fall off. Then they would be emancipated 
from the bondage of the Law. They would see the glory of the 
Spirit, the tender grace of redeeming love, shining in the face 
of Jesus Christ, and it would irradiate and transfigure them. 

12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we use much boldness 

13 of speech, and are not like Moses who ' put a veil on his 
face ' in order that the children of Israel might not gaze 

14 at the end of the transient thing. But their thoughts were 
dulled ; 1 for to this day the same veil remains upon the 
reading of the Old Covenant, since the fact is not unveiled 

15 to them that in Christ it is passing away. 2 No, down to 
this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart ; 

i6but whenever it turns to the Lord, the veil is taken off. 

17 ' The Lord ' is here the Spirit ; and where the Spirit of 

i8the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, seeing with 

unveiled face the reflection 3 of the Lord's glory, are trans- 

1 iroopou), properly 'petrify,' Xtdoiroiw (Suid. ). So 'make dull.' Of the heart, 
'make hard' or 'callous' (cf. Mk. vi. 52, viii. 17) ; of the eyes, 'make dim' or 
'blind' (cf. Jobxvii. 7 LXX). 

2 avaKaKvTTTb^vov, accus. absol., 'the fact not being unveiled that it (the Old 
Covenant) is being done away' (R.V. marg., Meyer). Otherwise (1) fxtvei. fir) 
&,va.Ka.\vTrTbixevov 6'ti, k.t.X., 'remains unlifted, because it (the veil) is being done 
away in Christ' (Vulg., Ambrstr.) ; (2) dvaKaXwro/xevoy' 0, n, k.t.X., 'remains 
unlifted; which (veil) is being taken away' (Bez., Luth., A.V., R.V.). It rules 
out both these constructions that the subject of xarapyeiTai is not ' the veil ' but 
'the Old Covenant' (cf. vers. 7, n, 13). The verb for 'removing the veil' is 
not Karapyelp but irepiaipetadcu. 

8 Ka.ToirTpL^6iievoi y not 'reflecting as a mirror' (R.V.), which would require the 
act. Ka.ToirTplt;oj>T€s. KarotrTpi'^ecrdai. (mid.) is 'to see the reflection' either 
(i) of oneself (cf. Diog. Laert. Socr. II. 33 : rj^iov 8e /cat tous vtovs avvex^s 
KaToirrpL^ecrdai, Xv\ el /xev KaXol et€i> y &£iot. yiyvoivTo. Plat. III. 39 : tois ixeOevovai 
ffwefiovXeve KaroTTpifecrdcu' airoaTifi&eadai yap rrjs roiavrris dcx^/iocnV^s. ) or 
(2) of another (cf. Phil. Leg. Alleg. III. p. 107, Mangey : /AT)8e KaTOTrrpiaat/xrjv iu 
&\\(j) rivl tt]v <tt)v I5e'ai> 7} h aol ry Gey). The mirror which reflects the glory of 
the Lord the Spirit, is the face of Christ (cf. iv. 5, 6). 



THE THIRD MISSION 357 

formed into the same image from glory to glory according 
to the wonted operation of the Lord the Spirit. 1 

In this glad letter to his penitent converts the Apostle is in The 
no mood for controversy, yet he cannot forget the strife ^Scry. 
which had so lately raged among them and which might so 
easily be revived, all the more that the Judaists remained 
in their midst. And therefore all through his exultant con- 
gratulation there runs a note of anxious solicitude and covert 
admonition. That argument, so impassioned yet so re- 
strained and elusive, on the transience of the Old Covenant 
and the transcendent and abiding glory of the New is a 
refutation of the Judaist insistence on the permanent obliga- 
tion of the Law ; and now he proceeds to deal with some of 
the personal allegations of his traducers. The first is that 
coarse calumny which branded him as ' a trickster,' seeking cf. xii. x6, 
selfish ends and deceiving his dupes by flattering speech and 
professions of disinterestedness. His answer is that trickery 
was impossible for one who had been entrusted with so lofty 
a ministry. Its glory put cowardice and duplicity to shame. 
His constant appeal was to men's consciences ; and if they 
failed to respond, the reason was that their moral sense was 
blinded ; as he had already said, there was ' a veil on their 
heart ' and the light of the Gospel could not penetrate it. 
The light which shone in the face of Christ had illumined his 
own heart, and his divine call was to illumine others. It was 
Christ, not himself, that he proclaimed ; and if he proclaimed 
himself, it was as an example of the Gospel's illuminating 
efficacy. 

iv. i Therefore, having a ministry like this, in view of the 

2 mercy we have experienced, we never lose heart. No, we 

have renounced shame's concealments, never playing ' the 

trickster ' or sophisticating the Word of God, 2 but by the 

1 As in the renewal of the earth (cf. Mk. iv. 28), so in the renewal of the soul 
the operation of the Creator Spirit is gradual, from one degree of glory to 
another. 

a do\ovv is synonymous with KcurriXeveiv, 'adulterate' (ii. 17). Cf. &5o\os, 
'pure,' 'unadulterated,' used of milk (1 Pet. ii. 2), grain {Oxyrh. Pap. 1124. 11 : 
irvpbv viov Ka.60.pbv ddo\ov dicpeidov), wine {ibid. 729. 19 : top fikp dvov irapa. Xrjvbv 
vtov dldoXov), Cf. Moulton and Milligan, Vocab. Precisely equivalent is the old 



358 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every 
3 human conscience in the sight of God. If, however, our 

Gospel is veiled, it is in the case of those who are on the 
Cf. ii. 15. 4 way to ruin that it is veiled ; and in their case the god of 

this age has blinded the thoughts of the faithless to shut 

out the illuminating beams of the Gospel of the glory of the 
Gen. i. 27. 5 Christ who is ' the image of God/ For it is not ourselves 

that we proclaim ; it is Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves 
6 as your slaves for Jesus' sake, because it is the God that 

said ' Light shall shine out of darkness/ who shone in our 

hearts that we might illumine others with the knowledge 

of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 



The taunt Next he notices his adversaries' sneer at his physical in- 

weakness. firmity. It was indeed a graceless taunt, yet on the lips of 
the Judaists it was not without excuse, since the ancient Law 

cf. Lev. had required that not only the sacrificial victim but the priest 
24 ' who offered it should be ' without blemish/ and later legis- 
lation so far from relaxing the restriction had strengthened 
it, specifying no fewer than a hundred and forty-two physical 
defects as disqualifying for the sacred office. 1 It was thus 

Cf. x. xo. natural that the weakness of Paul's bodily presence should 
figure in the Judaist indictment against his apostolic claim. 
And what is his reply ? The fact was indisputable. He was 
little of stature ; he was the victim of a chronic malady ; 
and he was worn with toil and travel and bore the scars of 
stoning and scourging. But this was no disqualification. 
On the contrary, it redounded to the glory of God. As a jewel 
shows the more resplendent in a base setting, so the power 
which employed so feeble an instrument, was the more con- 
spicuously divine. And, moreover, since his bodily infirmi- 
ties were the scars of his apostolic service, they were invested 
with a double glory. They were his portion in the sufferings 
of Christ and the evidence of his devotion to the souls of men. 
' It is all for your sakes/ 



use of 'sophisticate' in the sense of 'corrupting by admixture.' Cf. Scott, 
Woodstock, chap, x : ' there was a vintner, his green apron stained with wine, and 
every drop of it sophisticated.' Similarly O. E. ' card.' Cf. Shak. I King Hen. TV. 
ill. ii. 62 f. : 'carded his state, | Mingled his royalty with capering fools'; 
where Temple ed. quotes Green's Quip for an Upstart Courtier : ' You card your 
beer if you see your guests begin to get drunk, half small, half strong.' 
1 Cf. Schiirer, II. i. p. 214. 



THE THIRD MISSION 359 

7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels * that the 
transcendence of the power may be God's and no achieve- 

8ment of our own. At every turn we are distressed yet never 

9 straitened ; perplexed yet never at our wits' end ; hard 
pressed yet never left in the lurch ; stricken down yet never 

xo destroyed ; always carrying about in our body the mortal 
agony of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested 

11 in our body. Ever are we that are alive being delivered to 
death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be mani- 

12 tested in our mortal flesh. And so death is operative in us 

13 but life in you. Having, however, the same spirit of faith 
expressed in that scripture ' I had faith, and therefore I spoke,' Ps.cxvi.io. 

14 we also have faith, and therefore also we speak ; knowing as 
we do that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with 

15 Jesus and will present us with you. For it is all for your 
sakes, that grace may spread from soul to soul and make 
thanksgiving abound to the glory of God. 

The Apostle had a double purpose in introducing theTnecom- 
thought of the Resurrection. He desired, in the first instance, ReLn-eo- 6 
to display the comfort which that glorious hope afforded tion - 
and which sustained him amid his mortal sufferings. 

16 And therefore we never lose heart. No, though our outward 
man is wasting away, yet our inward man is being renewed 

17 day by day. For the light distress of the moment is working 
out for us, ever more and more transcendently, an eternal 

18 weight of glory ; while we look not at the things visible but 
at the things invisible ; for the things visible are temporary, 
but the things invisible are eternal. 

The hope of the Resurrection was impressively presented The horror 
at that juncture, at all events to the minds of Jewish Chris- Comment, 
tians. For it was the season of the Feast of Tabernacles, 
which was at once a celebration of the ingathering of the 
harvest and a commemoration of the wilderness wanderings. 
For forty years the children of Israel had made their weary 
pilgrimage in quest of the Promised Land, pitching their 
tents at nightfall and striking them on the morrow to con- 
tinue their march; and their experience served in after iChr.xxix. 
generations as a parable of this earthly life. So the Apostle IS * 
now employs it, and the image would appeal the more to the 
Corinthians when they recalled how he had earned LI& bread 

1 iv dcrrpaiclvois (TKeieffiv, 'in britel vessels' (Wycl.), worthless and fragile 
earthenware (cf. Ps. ii. 9). On (tkcvos cf. n. on 1 Th. iv. 4, p. 16 1. 



360 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

among them by plying his craft of tent-making. He likens 
the mortal body to a tent, ' the soul's frail dwelling-house.' 
When it is dismantled by the rude hand of death, the soul 
, is not left shelterless ; for there awaits it a nobler habitation 
— that spiritual body whereof he had told them in his second 
letter. It was indeed a glorious prospect, yet it would seem 
that despite his masterly handling of the problem a perplexity 
still remained in their minds, and its solution is his second 
and main concern. Even where the hope of immortality is 
cherished, there is an instinctive horror in the thought of 
death. For how will the soul fare when it is stripped of its 
corporeal vesture and goes forth naked into the unknown, 

* To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; 
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, 
And blown with restless violence round about 
The pendent world ' ? 

The blank misgiving which the thought inspires is poignantly 
expressed in that question of the dying Emperor Hadrian : * 

' Soul of mine, thou fleeting, clinging thing, 

Long my body's mate and guest, 
Ah now, whither wilt thou wing, 
Pallid, naked, shivering, 
Never, never more to sport and jest ? ' 

There was indeed reassurance in the Christian revelation of 
Cf. i Th. the resurrection of the body, yet it was but partial. For it is 
IV * l6, at the Second Advent that the dead will be raised, and mean- 
while their souls must remain naked, divested of their mortal 
bodies and yet unclothed with their ' heavenly habitation.' 
Here, in large measure, lies the raison d'etre of the hope which 
animated the primitive Christians that the Coming of. the 
Lord was at hand. Their longing was that they might live 
to witness it and thus escape death and never experience the 
i Cor, xv. desolation of disembodiment. For then, ' in a moment, in 



5»- 



1 Animula vagula, blandula, 
Hospes comesque corporis, 
Quae nunc abibis in loca, 
Pallidula, rigida, nudula, 
Nee, ut soles, dabis jocos?' 



THE THIRD MISSION 361 

the twinkle of an eye/ the transformation would be wrought 
and ' the mortal thing be swallowed up by life.' The Apostle 
shared this hope, this eager longing ; yet even though it were 
denied him, he was undismayed. For in any case the re- 
surrection of the body was a blessed certainty. It was the 
end which God had in view, and the present experience 
of the sanctifying operation of the Holy Spirit was ' the 
earnest ' of its ultimate consummation. With this prospect 
in view he went his way with a stout heart ; and while he 
would fain be home, his only ambition was that, whether 
here or there, he might please the Lord and be ready for the 
inquisition of His Judgment-seat. 

v. 1 For we know that if our earthly tent-dwelling be dis- 
mantled, we have one of God's building, an house which no 

2 hands have made, eternal, in the heavens. For in this we 
groan, longing to put on over it our heavenly habitation, 

3 if so be that by putting it on we shall not be found naked. 

4 For indeed we who are in the tent groan under its weight, 
on the understanding that it is not our desire to put off our 
vesture, no, but to put on a vesture over it, that the mortal 

5 thing may be swallowed up by life. But He who wrought 
us for this very end is God, who gave us the earnest of the 

6 Spirit. Therefore, being always courageous and knowing 
that, while we are at home in the body, we are exiled from 

7 the Lord ; for it is by faith that our steps are guided, not 

8 by sight — ay, we are courageous and are well content rather 

9 to be exiled from the body and get home to the Lord. And 
therefore also our ambition is that, whether at home or in 

10 exile, we should be well pleasing to Him. For all of us must 
appear in our true colours before the Judgment-seat of 
Christ, that each may receive what his body has earned 
according to his actions, whether a good award or an evil. 

This was the Apostle's attitude. He left the unknown The 
future in God's hands, confident that it would be wisely and SJSnSfia^ 1 
mercifully ordered. He was animated by that spirit which tion - 
the Old Testament Scriptures so largely inculcate—-' the fear 
of the Lord/ that spirit of reverent and trustful submission 
to the Sovereign Will of Almighty God which is evermore Ps. cxi 10 ; 
' the beginning of wisdom/ ' a strong confidence ' and ' a p^' ! X J; 
fountain of life/ He left the future in God's hands, and his 26 < »?• 
one concern was the discharge of the ministry which had 



362 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

been entrusted to him. His ambition was to ' persuade 
men ' ; and though his pleading was construed by his Judaist 
adversaries as unscrupulous plausibility, 1 God knew his 
motive, and he hoped he was justified by the consciences of 
the Corinthians. In saying that he was not ' commending 
himself ' to them ; he was rather seeking to show them the 
realities. His critics called him ' mad,' but what they deemed 
madness was a passion for God and for the souls of men. 
The love of Christ had possessed him, and it had revolution- 
ised his estimate of life, of men, and of the world. Life for 
cf. Gai. n. him was now life in Christ, since he had died with Christ and 
19, ao. j ia( j b een raised with Him. And his estimate of men was 
correspondingly altered. Earthly distinctions no longer 
counted. He ' knew no man according to the flesh/ He is 
thinking here of the Judaists and their insistence on the 
efficacy of external rites and more especially their denial of 
his apostleship because he had never known the Lord in the 
days of His flesh. That contention was valid only if the Lord 
were a mere historic personage, ' a Christ according to the 
flesh ' ; and though the Apostle had once shared that Jewish 
ideal of a secular Messiah, he had now attained to a loftier 
conception. Christ was for him the Risen and Glorified 
Saviour, truly known not according to the flesh but according 
to the Spirit, not by historic tradition but by immediate and 
vital fellowship. And thus, furthermore, the universe was 
transfigured in his eyes. The old order had passed away 
and a new order had arisen ; and what made the difference 
was Christ's revelation of God's thoughts and purposes. 
The world was alienated from God. It had rebelled against 
Him ; and it had seemed that there was no hope for guilty 
sinners save the averting of His wrath. It lay with them 
to approach Him with overtures of reconciliation. And, 
behold, He had visited the world in Christ, and had taken on 
Himself the burden of its guilt and demonstrated that the 
enmity is all on man's side. It is the world that needs to be 
reconciled to God, not God that must be reconciled to the 
world. 2 And this amazing revelation defined the Apostle's 

1 Cf. p. 197. 

^ On the Pauline doctrine of ' reconciliation ' cf. The Atonement in the Light of 
History and the Modern Spirit, pp. 1 1 1 f . 



THE THIRD MISSION 363 

ministry. He was Christ's ambassador, presenting God's 
overtures and offering a full atonement and a free forgiveness. 

11 It is, then, because we know ' the fear of the Lord ' that we cf. Gai. i. 
' persuade men ' ; and to God we have appeared in our true ** 
colours, and I hope that at the bar of your consciences also 

i« we have so appeared. We are not again commending our- 
selves to you ; no, we are giving you an outlet r for a boast 
on our behalf, that you may counter those whose boasting is 

13 all concerned with face-value and not with heart-reality. If 

H we are ' mad,' it is for God ; if we are sane, it is for you. For 
the love of Christ has us in its grasp, and this is our judgment : 

15 One died on behalf of all, consequently all died ; and He died 
on behalf of all that those who live should no longer live for 
themselves but for Him who on their behalf died and was 

16 raised. And so we henceforth know no one according to the 
flesh. Though we have conceived of a Christ according to 

1 7 the flesh, yet now that is no longer our conception. And so, 
if one be in Christ, there is a new creation : 2 the old order 

18 has passed away ; see, a new order has arisen. And it is all 
from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and 

19 gave us the ministry of reconciliation, to this effect — that God 
was in Christ, reconciling a world to Himself, not reckoning 
their trespasses to them and having entrusted to us the message 

20 of reconciliation. On Christ's behalf, then, we are ambas- 
sadors, as though God were appealing to you through us. We 

*i pray you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Him who 
never knew sin, He made sin on our behalf, that we might 
become God's righteousness in Him. 3 

This is the message of the Gospel, and the Apostle now a personal 
enforces his argument with a personal appeal. The Corinth- appeal - 
ians had welcomed the message when they heard it from his 
lips during his ministry among them, and would they now 
disown it and embrace the teaching of his Judaist adversaries? 
It was a momentous issue ; and it would commend his 
appeal and determine their decision if they remembered his 
credentials — his constant devotion and his many sufferings 
in the ministry of the Gospel. 

vi. 1 And in co-operation with Him we also appeal to you that 
2 it be not in vain that you welcomed the grace of God. For 
He says : 

1 Cf. p. 215. ? Cf. p. 220. 

• Cf. n. on Gal. iii. 13, p. 204. 



364 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

u, xiix-. • ' At an acceptable moment I hearkened to thee, 

And in a day of salvation I succoured thee/ 

See, now is the right ' acceptable moment ' ; see, now is 
3 'the day of salvation.' Never in anything do we put a 

hindrance in the way, lest blame be cast upon the ministry. 
4 No, in everything we commend ourselves as God's ministers 

should — in much endurance, in distresses, in necessities, in 
3 straits, in stripes, in imprisonments, in riots, in toils, in 
6 vigils, in fastings, in purity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, 
y in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unaffected love, in the 

preaching of the Truth, in the power of God ; by the weapons 
8 of righteousness in the right hand and in the left ; by glory 

and dishonour ; by ill report and good report ; as deceivers 
Ps. cxviii. 9 and true men ; as ignored and acknowledged ; as ' dying ' 
i7, 18. an( ^ see ^ we < j| ve » . as i chastened and not put to death ' ; 

io as grieved yet always rejoicing ; as poor yet enriching 
many ; as having nothing yet possessing everything. 

Apology Here the Apostle bethinks himself. He has wandered far 

for digres- 

sion. from the path of his argument, and he playfully apologises. 
His long digression was an outpouring of his overflowing 
tenderness, and it proved how large a space the Corinthians 
occupied in his affection. If there was any narrowness of 
heart, it was manifestly not on his side ; and he begs them 
to open their hearts to him as he had opened his to them. 
He deserved it ; for he had always treated them generously. 
No one had ever been the poorer for him during his ministry 
among them. Here, he need not reassure them, he was not 
reproaching them. He was talking frankly in the fulness 
of his pride and gladness. 

Pss. H. 15, xi Our lips have been opened ' to you, Corinthians ; ' our 

12 heart has been enlarged.' It is not in us that you are 
straitened for room ; it is in your own affections that you 

13 are straitened. And as a recompense in kind— I say it 
vii. 2 as to my children — be you also enlarged. 1 Make room for us. 

We wronged no one, we damaged no one, we overreached 
3 no one. I am not saying it to condemn you ; for I have 
already said that you are in our hearts to die with us and to 
Cf. ix. a. 4 live with us. I am very frank with you; I am always 

boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort ; my joy 
is overflowing upon all our distress. 

1 Vers. 14 — vii. 1, a fragment of the first Corinthian letter. Cf. p. 236. 



THE THIRD MISSION 365 

After his long digression he resumes his personal narrative. The good 
He has told how, in his anxiety to meet Titus and learn how cc*mth° m 
he had fared at Corinth, he. quitted Troas and crossed over cf. «. 13. 
to Macedonia ; and now he tells what happened there. The 
Judaist controversy was raging, and it was a difficult and 
indeed a dangerous situation since he had not only to deal 
with internal dissension but to face the violence of his ancient 
and inveterate enemies, the Macedonian Jews. And thus 
it was an unspeakable comfort and gladness to him when 
Titus arrived and reported the successful issue of his mission. 

5 For after we had come to Macedonia our flesh had no relief. 
At every turn we were distressed — fightings without, fears 

6 within. But the Comforter of the humble, even God, com- 

7 f orted us by the arrival of Titus ; and not only by his arrival 
but by the comfort which the thought of you afforded him in 
telling us the story of your longing, your lamentation, your 

8 zeal on my own behalf to the enhancement of my joy, because, 
though I grieved you in my letter, I do not regret it. Though 
I did regret it, perceiving * that that letter grieved you, though 

9 but for a brief hour, I now rejoice, not that you were grieved, 
but that your grief issued in repentance ; for you were grieved 
as God would have you, that in nothing might you suffer loss 

10 by us. For the grief which God would have works a repent- 
ance which issues in salvation — a repentance which is never 

11 regretted; whereas the world's grief works out death. For 
see, this very circumstance that you were grieved as God would 
have you — what earnestness it wrought out in you, ay, what 
self-defence, what vexation, what fear, what longing, what 
zeal, what vindication ! In everything you proved yourselves 

12 to be pure in the affair. 8 The fact is that, though I wrote 
you, it was not that the wrong-doer might be punished or his 
victim righted but that your earnestness on our behalf might 

13 be manifested among you in the sight of God. On this score 
it is that we have been comforted. 

It was the Apostle's stern letter that had achieved the An achieve- 
happy result, yet it would have availed nothing without the tuSs ° f 
personal address of Titus. By his courage, wisdom, tact, 
and kindliness he had succeeded where the gentle and timor? 
ous Timothy had failed. He had amply justified the Apostle's 

1 Reading pXiiruv with Vulg. (videns), which satisfactorily rectifies a manifestly 
corrupt passage. The MSS. have jSXeirw or f5\£ir<D yap. 

* t£ irpdynaTt, a delicate reference to the unnamablc scandal. Cf. I Th. iv. 6. 



366 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

confidence, and he was well entitled to the satisfaction which 
so signal a triumph afforded him. 

And besides our comfort we were still more abundantly 
rejoiced at the joy of Titus because his spirit has received 

14 refreshment from you all. However I may have boasted to 
him on your behalf, I was not put to shame ; no, as it was all 
truth that we spoke to you, so our boasting to Titus also turned 

15 out truth. And his affection is flowing out to you the more 
at the remembrance of your unanimous obediences-how with 

16 fear and trembling you received him. I rejoice that in every- 
thing I have courage in you. 

Neglect of There was one alloy in the Apostle's gladness : the Corinth- 
£m C forthe i ans na( * neglected the collection for the poor at Jerusalem. 
poor at Soon after his settlement at Ephesus he had sent Titus and 

Jerusalem. r 

his Antiochene colleague to Corinth to commend the bene- 
ficent enterprise, and it had been espoused with much good 
will. 1 Presently, however, a dispute had arisen regarding 
the method to be pursued in taking the collection, and the 
cf. 1 Cor. question had been referred to the Apostle in the consultative 
xvi. 1-4. rescript which the Corinthians had addressed to him the 
previous summer. The dispute was concerned merely with 
the mode of procedure, and after his decision he had assumed 
that the business was in progress until, to his discomfiture, 
he learned from Titus that nothing had been done. 
Mace- And so he appeals to them to repair their neglect ; and 

liberality, hy way of incentive he begins by telling them of the splendid 
generosity of the Macedonian churches, which was the more 
remarkable since Macedonia was at that period groaning 
under an oppressive burden of imperial taxation. 2 The 
people were desperately poor, yet they had insisted on bear- 
ing their part in the charity. It was an act of self-consecra- 
tion, signalising their happy deliverance from the Judaist 
controversy, and it had occurred to the Apostle that the 
Corinthians might well follow the example and attest their 
penitence by a like devotion. And so he had enlisted Titus 
to revisit them and complete his good work by engaging 
their liberality. 

1 Cf. p. 214. 

' Cf. Arnold, Later Roman Commonwealth, 11. pp. 381 ff. 



THE THIRD MISSION 367 

viii. 1 But we acquaint you, brothers, with the grace of God 

a vouchsafed among the churches of Macedonia — that it is 

in the thick of a distressing ordeal that their joy is so 

abundant, and their deep poverty issued in the abundant 

3 riches of their liberality. According to their ability, I 

4 testify, and beyond their ability, of their own free will with 
much appeal they begged of us the privilege of participating 

5 in the ministry to the saints. And it was not merely as 
we had hoped ; no, they first gave themselves to the Lord 

6 and to us through the will of God, insomuch that we 
appealed to Titus that he should follow up the good begin- 
ning he had already made by accomplishing among you this 

7 grace also. Ay, as you abound in everything — faith and 
eloquence and knowledge and the love which we have 
inspired in you — see that you abound in this grace also. 

It was not a command that he was addressing to them ; it An appeal 
was an appeal to their honour. And their incentive was ° 
threefold : the example which their Macedonian neighbours 
had set ; the gratitude which they owed to Christ for His 
infinite self-sacrifice ; and, furthermore, the obligation which, 
in the Apostle's judgment, rested upon them, for their own 
credit, to make good the enthusiastic protestations of last 
year. The collection was no oppressive or inequitable 
imposition. They were asked to contribute according to 
their resources ; and the appeal was addressed not to Corinth 
alone but to all Gentile Christendom, and they were required 
merely to play their proper part. 

8 I am not saying it in the way of a commandment ; no, I am 
employing the earnestness of your neighbours to prove the 

9 genuineness of your love. For you recognise the grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ — that for your sakes, when He was rich, 
He became poor, that you by His poverty might become rich. 

10 And I give you an opinion in this matter : this is to your 
advantage, since you made a beginning a year ago not merely 

11 in doing it but also in desiring it. And now accomplish the 
doing also, that your eagerness in desiring it may be matched 
by your accomplishment of it out of the resources you have. 

12 For if the eagerness be there, it is acceptable according to the 

13 means it may have, not according to what it has not. The 
intention is not that others should be relieved and you dis- 
tressed. No, it is that, on the principle of equality, at the 

present crisis your abundance may meet their lack in order 
that their abundance in turn may meet your lack, so that 



368 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Ex, xvi. i8. 15 equality may result, as it is written : ' He who gathered much 
had no more, and he who gathered little had no less.' 

Delegates It was not without reluctance that Titus had undertaken 
" his first mission to Corinth some two years previously ; but 
after his recent experience he was otherwise disposed. He 
welcomed the Apostle's proposal and was eager to set out. 
He was not going alone. Two others would bear him com- 
pany. One was a preacher who had gained a distinguished 
reputation in Macedonia, and who had been elected by the 
churches of the province to accompany Paul when he returned 
to Jerusalem, and convey their contributions thither. This 
the Apostle is careful to mention, and it would bring the blush 
to the faces of the Corinthians. His enemies in their midst 
had charged him with malfeasance in the administration of 
the collection, 1 and it was that cruel calumny which had 
dictated this arrangement, He would not handle the fund : 
each church must appoint a delegate to convey its contribu- 
tion to the Holy City. It would seem that this distinguished 
delegate was none other than Luke, who for the last five years 
had laboured in Macedonia 2 and henceforth bore the Apostle 
company. Philippi had been the headquarters of his Mace- 
donian ministry, and the Philippian church would naturally 
entrust him with the conveyance of its contribution-. The 
other companion of Titus was doubtless his Antiochene 
colleague who had attended him on his first eleemosynary 
mission to Corinth and who had abundantly proved his 
capacity. For all three the Apostle bespeaks a gracious 
reception. Titus needed no introduction, and it was a strong 
recommendation of his companions that they were ' com- 
missioners of churches.' It became the Corinthians to show 
them honour not only in their personal but in their repre- 
sentative capacity. Their slighting would be an affront to 
the churches which had commissioned them. 

16 And thanks be to God who is putting the same earnestness 

17 on your behalf into the heart of Titus. He not merely accepts 
our appeal but his reluctance is all gone and of his own free 

18 will he is setting out to visit you. 3 And we are sending with 

1 Cf. pp. 321 f. ' Cf. p. 135. 

• iSttaro, i^rjXdev, <rvp*ictfx\f>afi<r (vers. 18, 22>, &re/xfa (ix. 3), epistolary 
norists. Cf. p. 219. 



THE THIRD MISSION 369 

him the brother whose praise in the Gospel is all over the 

19 churches, 1 and who, moreover, has been elected by the churches 
as our fellow-traveller in connection with this grace which is 
being ministered by ua. It is the Lord's own glory and our 

20 eagerness that we have in view ; this being our concern — 
that no one should blame us in connection with this rich store 

21 which is being ministered by us ; for we are ' safeguarding our Prov. iii. 4 
honour ' not only ' in the Lord's sight ' but ' in the sight of LXX - 

22 men.' And we are sending with them our brother whose 
earnestness we have proved many a time in many a matter 
and now find largely increased by his large confidence in you. 

23 As regards Titus, he is my comrade and fellow-worker for you ; 
and as for our brothers, they are commissioners of churches, 

24 they are the glory of Christ. Therefore in demonstrating 
toward them your love and our boasting on your behalf you 
are doing it in the face of their churches. 



And now the Apostle commends the collection to the incen- 

c 



liberality of the Corinthians. First, he reminds them that SJJJjjj 



their credit was at stake. On the strength of their protesta- 
tions a year ago he had boasted to the Macedonians how 
much Corinth was doing, and now it turned out that Corinth 
had done nothing. Some of the Macedonians intended 
accompanying him to Achaia presently, and what would they 
think if they discovered on their arrival that his boasting had 
been groundless ? It was to obviate this unpleasant dinoue- 
ment that he was sending the three delegates in advance ; 
and he bids the Corinthians retrieve their neglect and save 
his face, and their own faces too. Then he reminds them of 
the religious motive. It is the testimony of Scripture that 
' God loves a blithe giver ' and recompenses liberality. It 
is the sowing of a rich harvest. And there was a peculiar 
incentive in the present instance. The Gentile collection 

1 The general opinion of the Fathers that this distinguished brother was Luke 
(Orig. in Eus. Hist. EccL VI. 25 ; Hieronym. ; ' certain ' quoted by Chrys. Cf. 
Grot.) has been discredited by their fancy that iv ry 61/077 e\ty refers to his 
Gospel, which in fact was not yet written. Nevertheless the identification is highly 
probable. He had laboured for over five years in Macedonia, and of no other, 
so far as evidence goes, could it have been said that ' his praise was all over the 
churches.' And from his introduction of the first pers. pron. in Ac. xx. 4, 5 it 
appears that he had been with Paul at Corinth and accompanied him on his return 
journey through Macedonia. From ver. 2 it appears that he did not accompany 
him from Macedonia to Corinth, and it is a reasonable supposition that he was one 
of the delegates who had preceded him (cf. ix. 3-5). 

2A 



370 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

for the Jewish poor was not merely a worthy charity ; it 
was a statesmanlike enterprise. It was an effective irenicon, 
tending to the reconciliation of Christendom by demonstrat- 
ing to the Jewish Christians that Gentile Christianity was 
a practical reality. ' Thanks to God,' cries the Apostle, 
' for His unspeakable bounteousness ' — the regal munificence 
of His grace ! x That was the supreme and overmastering 
incentive. 

ix. i Regarding the ministry to the saints 2 it is indeed super- 

2 fluous for me to write you. For I know your eagerness, 
and I am boasting of it on your behalf to the Macedonians— 
that Achaia has been prepared a year ago ; and your zeal 

3 stimulated most of them. And I am sending the brothers 
that our boast on your behalf may not be an empty one in 
this particular — that, as I was saying, you may be prepared, 

4 lest it be that, if Macedonians come with me and find you 
unprepared, we — to say nothing of you — may be put to 

5 shame where we thought we had standing-ground. 3 There- 
fore I deemed it necessary to appeal to the brothers that 
they should go beforehand to you and arrange beforehand 
your promised blessing, that it may thus be ready as a bless- 

6 ing and not as an exaction. And here is the rule : ' Niggardly 
sowing, a niggardly harvest ; bountiful sowing, a bountiful 

7 harvest.' 4 Let each give as he has decided beforehand in 
Prov. xxii. his heart, not as a grievous or necessary duty ; for ' God 
s lxx. 8 i ves a blithe giver.' And God has the power to bestow 

abundance of every grace upon you, that you may in every- 
thing ever have every sufficiency 5 and abound in every good 
Ps. cxii. 9. 9 work, as it is written : ' He scattered ; he gave to the poor ; 

10 his righteousness abides for ever.' And He who furnishes 
is. lv. 10. ' seed to the sower and bread for eating ' will furnish and 
Hos^ x. 12 multiply your seed, and make ' the fruits of your righteous- 

11 ness ' grow ; while at every turn you are enriched for every 
sort of liberality which through us works out thanksgiving 

12 to God, because the ministry of this sacred service does not 
only supply the wants of the saints but also overflows in 

Cf. n. on Rom. v. 15, p. 407. 

wepl fih yap rrjs diaKovias, ' I have written of my delegates and not of the 
collection, for it is superfluous to write of the latter ' — a courteous expression of 
confidence in their liberality. 
8 Cf. n. on xi. 17, p. 332. 
4 A proverb. Cf. n. on Gal. vi. 7, p. 218. 

* avrd/Mceia, properly a philosophical term, ' self-sufficingness,' 'independence,' 
but frequent in Common Greek in the sense of 'the necessary and fitting amount.' 
Cf, Moulton and Milligan, Vocob. 



LXX. 



THE THIRD MISSION 371 

:3 a stream of thanksgiving to God. The proof of you which 
this ministry affords moves them to glorify God for your 
confessed allegiance to the Gospel of Christ and the liberality 

14 of your impartation to them and to all ; while they also 
in prayer on your behalf long for you by reason of Gods 

15 surpassing grace toward you. Thanks to God for His 
unspeakable bounteousness ! 

The letter closes with exhortations to reconciliation, unity, Exhorta- 
and peace, befitting the penitent Church ; * and the Apostle ^°" s and 
appends his accustomed sign-manual. manual, 

xiii. 11 And now, brothers, farewell. Be knit together, 2 be com- 
forted, be of the same mind, be at peace ; and the God 

12 of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another 

13 with a saintly kiss. All the saints greet you. 

14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love 
of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be 
with you all. 



V 

SOJOURN AT CORINTH Ac. xx. 2 *, 

30 ; Rom. 

It was in the month of September, 56 a.d., that the glad Paul's de- 
letter was despatched to Corinth. The Apostle remained Corinth* 
yet a while in Macedonia not merely to complete his ministry 
there but to afford the Corinthians time to make their col- cf. 2 Cor. 
lection ere he should arrive among them ; and it was prob- 1Xi I_s ' 
ably about the beginning of December when he set out. 
He did not go alone. Several of the Macedonians ac- 
companied him — a Bercean named Sopater, the son of 
PynTms, and two Thessalonians, Aristarchus who had been cf. Ac 
at Ephesus when the riot took place and had been rudely x 
handled by the mob, and his fellow-townsman Secundus. 
He was attended also by Gaius of Derbe 3 who had suffered 
with Aristarchus in the riot, and by Tychicus and Trophimus, 

1 x-xiii. 10, the stern letter. Cf. pp. 327 ff. 

9 Cf. n. on 1 Th. iii. 10, p. 161. 

* He is styled ' Gaius of Derbe ' (Ac. xx. 4) to distinguish him from Gaius of 
Corinth, Paul's host. Valckenaer, followed by Blass, emends Fdi'os AepjSaZos /cai 
Ttijiodeos into Td'ios, Aepfiahs 5<r Tifxodeo?, ' Gaius, and Timothy of Derbe ' in view 
of the reading Ma/ce56yas in Ac. xix. 29 (cf. p. 342). Timothy, however, belonged 
not Lj Derbe but to the neighbouring Lystra. Cf. p. 100. 



372 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Cf. 2 Cor. 
viii. 19, 20 ; 
Rom. xv. 
25, 26. 

His em- 
ployment 
there. 

Cf. 1 Cor. i. 
14 ; Rom. 
xvi. 23. 



A treatise 
on the 
Judaist 
contro- 
versy. 



the two Ephesians who had shared his flight from the Asian 
Capital. 1 All these, at all events, were with him when he 
took his departure from Corinth three months later, and it 
is likely that they accompanied him thither. Corinth was 
merely a station in his journey to Jerusalem, and the three 
Macedonians had doubtless been delegated to convey their 
churches' contributions. 

He had a gracious reception on his arrival. He no longer 
needed to earn his daily bread ; for his convert and friend, 
the large-hearted Gaius, welcomed him into his home and 
hospitably entertained him. His visit lasted three months, 
and to outward appearance it was an uneventful time. He 
engaged in no missionary activities ; indeed, in view of the 
perils and anxieties which he had recently sustained in Asia 
and Macedonia, it may well be supposed that he had need of 
repose and welcomed the breathing-space which his sojourn 
at Corinth afforded. Yet the days did not pass unprofitably. 
His mere presence was a benediction, and his gracious con- 
verse would comfort and confirm the penitent church. 
Above all, he employed himself in a task of measureless and 
enduring value ; for it was then that he composed the 
grandest of his extant Epistles, a work which ranks as his 
chief literary monument and constitutes not the least precious 
of Christendom's sacred possessions. 2 

From the outset of his career Jewish hostility had been 
the Apostle's chief obstacle ; and more embarrassing than 
the enmity of the unbelieving Jews who accounted him a 
renegade, a traitor to his people and his God, was the opposi- 
tion of those Jewish Christians who insisted on the permanent 
obligation of the ceremonial Law r and reprobated his Gospel 
of salvation for Jews and Gentiles by faith in Christ. It had 
seemed as though the controversy were settled by the decree 
of the Council of Jerusalem at the beginning of the year 50, 
and he had gone on his second mission with a light heart ; 



1 For 'Aaiavoi (Ac. xx. 4) Cod. Bez. (D) reads 'E^&rtot. Trophimus was 
certainly an Ephesian (cf. Ac. xxi. 29), and so, it would appear (cf. Eph. vi. 21 ; 
2 Tim. iv. 12), was Tychicus also. 

a Cf. Coleridge, Table Talk, June 15, 1833 : 'St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans 
is the most profound work in existence ; and I hardly believe that the writings of 
the old Stoics, now lost, could have been deeper.' 



THE THIRD MISSION 373 

but on his return to Syrian Antioch in the spring of 53 he 
learned that Judaist propagandists had followed him through 
Galatia and sown dissension in his churches there. He had 
remedied the mischief first by a hasty letter and then by a 
personal visit ; but as he proceeded on his third mission it 
appeared that they had tracked his footsteps westward and 
poisoned the minds of his converts in Macedonia and Achaia. 
It was a grave menace to the progress of the Gospel, demanding 
more serious and effective treatment than he had hitherto, 
amid his manifold distractions, been able to accord it. His 
sojourn at Corinth afforded him a fitting opportunity, and 
he availed himself of it. He resumed the argument which 
he had roughly sketched in his impassioned remonstrance 
with the churches of Galatia, 1 defining the relation between 
the Law and the Gospel, expounding and enforcing his 
doctrine of Justification by Faith, and examining the pro- 
blems which it involved. 

This treatise is the letter which is commonly known as The pro- 
1 the Epistle to the Romans ' ; and though the title is merely jjde? 
traditional, yet it seems to carry the Apostle's express Nation, 
attestation. For he addresses ' all who are at Rome ' and u 7. is- 
presently affirms his eagerness to ' preach the Gospel to you 
also who are at Rome ' ; and thus it would appear that the 
destination of the letter was the Christian community in the 
Imperial Capital. On closer scrutiny, however, a difficulty 
emerges. 

Turn to the closing chapter. This is a personal appendix. The 
It begins with a ' commendation ' of Phcebe, the bearer of ^^c/ 
the letter, attesting her bona fides and bespeaking a welcome wi * his 
for her ; and then follows a long series of greetings to friends 
of the Apostle in the church which he is addressing. It is 
here that the difficulty lies ; and it is twofold. On the one Cf. xv. 22- 
hand, though this was an ambition which he had long cherished c 9 f ; i, io . 
and hoped ere long to realise, he had never visited Rome ; I 5- 
and how then is it possible that in a church which he had 
never seen he should have had so many acquaintances, nay 
intimate, personal friends — all that extensive catalogue of 

1 Cf. Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 49 : ' The Epistle to the Galatians stands in 
relation to the Roman letter, as the rough model to the finished statue.' 



374 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

men and women whom he specifies by name and greets with 
such close knowledge and tender affection ? 
Ephesians Again, while the majority are strangers to us, there are 
tSm! g three whom we recognise, and these belong not to Rome but 
to Ephesus. First of all, and with special honour and 
affection, he mentions Prisca and Aquila. It is true that 
they belonged originally to Rome ; but they had been 
banished thence by the anti- Jewish edict of the Emperor 
Claudius and had migrated to Corinth, where Paul had made 
their acquaintance in the autumn of the year 51. 1 They had 
left Corinth with him in the spring of 53 and accompanied 
him to Ephesus. 2 There they settled, and they were still 
there when he returned in the ensuing October. 3 Their 
house was his abode during his Ephesian ministry, and they 
risked their lives on his behalf in the riot which so abruptly 
Cf. a Tim. terminated it in January, 56.* They were still at Ephesus 
some ten years later ; and hence it would appear that the}' 
were there at the time of the Apostle's sojourn at Corinth 
betwixt December, 56, and February, 57. Another to receive 
a greeting is Epaenetus ; and he is designated ' Asia's first- 
fruits for Christ/ 5 That is to say, he was the earliest convert 
in the Province, and it was doubtless during the Apostle's 
brief stay at Ephesus in the year 53, on his return journey to 
Syrian Antioch, that he was won. 6 In any case, he was an 
Ephesian, since it was at Ephesus that the Gospel was first 
preached in the Province of Asia. 
The des- The situation, then, is that this closing chapter of the letter 
tination j s addressed, not to a community which, like the church at 

apparently ' J ' 

not Rome Rome, Paul had never visited, but to one where he was well 
Ephesus. known and had numerous intimates. Such a community 
was the church at Ephesus ; and it is to it that the only 
familiar names in the catalogue of the Apostle's friends 
actually belonged. This circumstance, if it stood alone, 
would indicate that Ephesus was the destination of the 

1 Cf. p. 151. * Cf. p. 189. 

* Cf. p. 228. * Cf. p. 343. 

* Rom. xvi. 5 : avapxT) Tr)s'A.<ria$ NABCD*FG. T.R. 'Axafas is disproved not 
only by documentary evidence but by the fact that ' the first-fruits of Achaia ' were 
the household of Stephanas (cf. I Cor. xvi. 15). 

6 Cf. p. 191. 



THE THIRD MISSION 375 

letter ; but the fact remains that it is expressly addressed 
to the church at Rome. 

The truth is that ' the Epistle to the Romans ' is an en- An encycj 
cyclical or circular letter. 1 It deals, not with a local question, ca ' 
but with a matter of universal concern, a far-reaching con- 
troversy which had already disturbed the Churches of Galatia, 
Macedonia , and Achaia, and menaced the future progress of 
the Faith. The Apostle had dealt with it personally in 
those particular arenas ; but his adversaries were prosecut- 
ing their malign activities, traducing him where he was yet 
unknown and creating a prejudice which would be hard for 
him to overcome when he should journey thither. To obviate 
this embarrassment he wrote an encyclical dealing exhaus- 
tively with the question, and despatched it to the communities 
which were exposed to the assaults of the Judaist propagan- 
dists. His solicitude turned mainly in two directions. In 
the Province of Asia there were numerous Churches which, 
though he had never seen them, had been created by his 
ministry at Ephesus, particularly in the valley of the Maeander 
and the Lycus, that populous district whence his physical 
malady had hitherto debarred him. 2 Among these were 
the Churches of Colossae, Laodiceia, and Hierapolis, and 
others which had been established by the labours of his 
Ephesian colleagues and converts but which had never ' seen Cf. Col. h. 
his face in the flesh/ Then there was Rome, the Imperial x 
Capital. She was the goal of the Apostle's desire. The 
Gospel would never dominate the world until the mistress cf. Ac. xix. 
of the world was won ; and as he travelled ever farther RornTxv"' 
westward, he yearned more and more for the day when he 22_2 4- 
would reach Rome. 



1 This was first perceived by Renan, who distinguished four copies. The 
encyclical is i-xi ; and it was sent to (i) the Roman Church with xv added ; (2) to 
the Ephesian Church with xii-xiv, xvi. 1-20 added ; (3) the Thessalonian Church 
with xii-xiv, xvi. 21-24 added; and (4) an unknown Church with xii-xiv, xvi. 
25-27 added. His view is criticised by Lightfoot {Bibl. Ess., pp. 287 ff.), who 
supposes that the Epistle as it stands was addressed to the Roman Church, and 
the Apostle subsequently adapted it for use as an encyclical by cutting off chaps. 
xv, xvi and substituting the doxology (xvi. 25-27), and also omitting h 'Pw/ii7(i. 7, 
15). Cf. Hort's criticism in same volume (pp. 321 ff.) ; also Appendix to W. H., 
pp. 1 10-13). The question is luminously treated by Lake {Earlier Epistles of St. 
Paul, chap. vi). * Cf. pp. 121 ff., 224. 



376 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Original 
address. 



Multi- 
plicity of 
benedic- 
tions. 



xvi. aa 



It was thus needful, in the interest of the cause which la}' 
so near his heart, that the truth should be presented in Asia 
and, above all, in Rome ; and it was for the Christians in the 
Imperial Capital especially that he composed this treatise, 
this exposition of the issues involved in the Judaistic con- 
troversy. As it stands, it is addressed ' to all who are at 
Rome, God's beloved,' ' to you also who are at Rome ' ; but 
this is not the original text. Our earliest manuscript dates 
from the fourth century, 1 and in the text which Origen 
employed a century earlier the words ' in Rome ' are absent 
from the address. 2 This means that in the original draft of 
the encyclical the destination was left undefined. The 
address ra,n : ' to all who are at — — , God's beloved,' ' to 

you also who are at ' ; and when the letter was assigned 

to a particular locality, the destination was entered in the 
blank space. The copies for the Province of Asia would 
be addressed ' to all,' ' to you also, who are at Colossce,' 
1 Laodiceia,' and so forth ; and the copy for Rome ' to all,' 
' to you also, who are at Rome.' 

And now turn to the close of the letter. What here arrests 
attention is the multiplicity of benedictions. A benediction 
commonly marks the conclusion of a letter, yet there are 
here no fewer than three. The first closes the fifteenth 
chapter : ' Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.' 
This should be the end ; but the Apostle proceeds further, 
and then he pronounces a second benediction : * The grace 

1 Codex Sinaiticus (N). 

1 Origen's commentary on Rom. exists only in a Latin version, and this reads 
* omnibus qui sunt Romse, dilectis Dei' (ver. 7), 'et vobis qui Romse estis' 
(ver. 15) ; but that iv 'Pu>,ut7 was absent from his text is proved by a scholium in S 
(Codex Athous Laurge, 8 th or 9 th c, based on the lost text of Origen's com- 
mentary) : rod * iv 'Pwjuj ' oSre iv rrj i^rjyrjCTei oijre iv r<j> pv T V fJ-vrifioveiei, 'he 
mentions "at Rome" neither in the exposition nor in the passage' {i.e., the text 
prefixed to the exposition). This means that, while inserting iv 'Puj/xt; in his text 
in deference to the MSS. of his day, the scribe explains that the phrase was absent 
from the text of Origen which he is reproducing. It was necessary that the 
hiatus should be supplied in lectionary use, and iv 'Pu>/a3 was naturally inserted, 
since the encyclical was destined in pritnis for the Roman Church. Another 
device, however, appears in G (Codex Bosrnerianus Dresdensis, 9 th c), which in 
ver. 15 omits rots iv 'Tdi/xj] and in ver. 7 reads to» otaiv iv a-yawy Qeov, 'to all 
who are in the love of God.' This was an early reading. Cf. Ambrstr. (4 th c.) : 
' Quamvis Romanis scribat, illis tamen scribere se significat qui in charjtate Dei 
sunt.' 



THE THIRD MISSION $71 

of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.' And neither is this 
the end. Fresh greetings follow, and then a third bene- ver. 24. 
diction : ' The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. 
Amen.' And thereafter the letter at length closes with a vers. 25- 
doxology. 2? - 

It seems a bewildering tangle ; but a clue to its unravel- Appendix 
ment is furnished by the fact that the final doxology is placed messages. 
by numerous authorities at the close of the fourteenth 
chapter. 1 And this, it appears, was its original position. 
The fourteenth chapter concluded the encyclical, which, 
being properly a treatise and. not a letter, fitly closed with a 
doxology rather than a personal benediction. And conceive 
what happened when the encyclical was despatched to its 
various destinations. Not only was the address inserted 
at the beginning but a personal message was appended at the 
close. It was sent to Rome, and indeed it was Rome that 
lay chiefly on the Apostle's heart when he wrote it ; and 
then the fifteenth chapter was added by way of a personal 
message. It was sent also to the Churches of Asia ; and 
then it was addressed to the mother-church at Ephesus for 
circulation in the Province, and it was accompanied by a 
personal message to the Ephesian Christians — the first 
twenty verses of the sixteenth chapter. And what of the 
ensuing paragraph ? It is a special greeting from the inner Vers. 21- 
circle of the Apostle's friends and his amanuensis ; and it would 24 ' 
be inserted after his personal message in every copy of the 
encyclical. All that he had written was accounted precious 
in after days, and it was inevitable that his messages to the 
great Churches of Rome and Ephesus should be permanently 
incorporated. The doxology, properly the close of the en- 
cyclical, was generally transferred to the end as a fitting 

1 L (Cod. Angel. Rom., 9 th c), Syr. and Arm. Verss., Chrys. Origen (In 
Ep. ad Rom. Comnt. x. 43) observes that the heretic Marcion (2 nd c.) had 
cut away not only the doxology but the whole of chaps, xv, xvi, making xiv. 23 
the close of the Epistle ; while in the other copies, uninfluenced by Marcion, he 
found the doxology diversely placed. In some codices it followed xiv. 23, 
whereas in others it stood at the end of the Epistle, ut nunc est posit um. The 
fact is that Marcion's text was not, as Origen supposes, a deliberate mutilation of 
the Epistle ; it was the original encyclical. And Tertullian also seems to have 
known the Epistle in that abbreviated form ; at all events, he refers to xiv. 10 as 
occurring 'in the closing section' {in clausula). Cf. Adv. Marc. v. 14. 



178 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



>j i 



22. 



xvi. 24. conclusion of the whole ; x and then the preceding benedic- 
tion appeared superfluous. It seemed to copyists an acci- 
Ver. ao. dental repetition of the previous benediction ; and hence it 

is omitted in the principal manuscripts. 2 
The Though Timothy was with the Apostle, he did not on this 

amanuen- occas i on se rve as his amanuensis. The office was performed 
cf. xvi. 21, by one Tertius, who is otherwise unknown. An expert hand 
was required for the execution and reduplication of so im- 
portant a document, and Tertius was doubtless a professional 
scribe ; possibly he may have been the private secretary of 
Gaius. In any case he was a Christian ; and it is evident 
that he was a personage of some consequence in the Corinth- 
ian Church, else he would hardly have presumed to send his 
greeting to the various Churches which received the ency- 
clical. 



ENCYCLICAL ON JUSTIFICATION 

(' Epistle to the Romans ') 

INTRODUCTION (i. I-I5) 

The The letter opens with the customary address ; and the 

address. Apostle with characteristic skill elaborates the stereotyped 
formula, and defines at the outset the main issues of the 
controversy. The Judaist attack was directed principally 
against his Apostleship and his Gospel ; and here he vindi- 
cates both. His Apostleship rested on a double basis. He 
was an Apostle by redemption, since he was ' a slave of Jesus 
Christ/ ' bought for freedom * ; 3 and by divine appointment, 
since he had been ' set apart/ first, in God's eternal purpose 
and, then, by his ' calling ' in due season. And as for his 
Gospel, his message of salvation for Jew and Gentile, it was 
no innovation, as the Judaists alleged, but the fulfilment of 
an ancient promise enshrined in the prophetic Scriptures — 
the Saviour's Incarnation and His glorious Resurrection. 

1 The theory that the doxology is a liturgical addition (cf. Lake, Earlisr 
Epistles, pp. 359 ff.) is so far supported by its omission from Marcion's text. 
8 KABC. * Cf. p. 265. 



THE THIRD MISSION 379 

1 Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, 1 by calling an Apostle, set Cf. Gal. i. 

2 apart to preach God's Gospel which He promised in advance ^ ^ °" 

3 through His Prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning 
His Son, who was a descendant of David according to the 

4 flesh and was defined ' Son of God ' in power, according to 
the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection of the dead 2 — 

5 Jesus Christ our Lord. Through Him we received grace and 
apostleship for the achievement of faith's surrender among 

6 all the Gentiles on His Name's behalf, including you who by 

7 calling are Jesus Christ's. To all who are at , God's 

beloved, by calling saints. Grace to you and peace from God 
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The Apostle was addressing churches which he had never Personal 
yet visited, and he apprehended that they might be aggrieved i*<£*™ 
at his seeming neglect. Indeed it is likely that during his 
long ministry at Ephesus he had intended visiting the numer- 
ous churches in the Province and they had complained of 
his remaining all the while in the capital and denying them 
the privilege of seeing his face and hearing his voice. And 
so, ere entering upon his argument, he absolves himself from 
blame. He assures his readers of his affectionate and 
prayerful interest in them, his desire to see them, and his 
hope that he might ere long achieve it. It was notorious 
how his purpose had hitherto been overruled by the provid- 
ence of God, and it could simply be ' wilful ignorance ' on 
their part if they persisted in suspecting him of deliberate 
neglect. 

8 First, 3 I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, 

1 The authorities vary between 'LjcroD Xpt.<rTov (KAEGKLP, Chrys.) and 
Xpto-roO 'lycrov (B, Arm., Orig., Aug., Ambrstr.). The distinction is that T.X. 
starts from our Lord's humanity and rises to His deity (cf. Chrys. : kclI rd rrjs 
oixovop.las 6v6fia.Ta Trpo[3dX\eTai, KcLrwdev avafialvwv &vu>) — the Synoptic order ; 
whereas X.T. starts from His deity and descends to His humanity — the Johannine 
order. 

8 The Christ (Messiah) of Jewish expectation was ' the Son of God ' merely as 
the King of Israel (cf. Pss. ii. 6, 7, Ixxxix. 27) of David's lineage ; but our Lord 
was defined 'Son of God' in a deeper sense by (1) His miraculous power, 
h Swd/xei (cf. xv. 19), (2) His perfect holiness, Kara xveO/xa 6,yt(i}(xvi>T]s, and (3) 
His Resurrection, it; dvao-rdireus veicpiov, not simply the resurrection of Christ 
(which would be e£ dvacrrda-eoos ai/rou i< veupQv), but that also of all who are 
united to Him. His resurrection was not solitary : it involved the resurrection of 
believers (cf. I Cor. xv. 20-23). 

3 irpwrov flip should be balanced by elra 84, but grammatical sequence is 
characteristically overborne by the rush of thought, 



380 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

9 that your faith is being noised all over the world. God whom 
I serve in my spirit in the Gospel of His Son, is my witness 

io how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers 
asking that now at length the way may, in the will of God, 

ii be cleared for me to visit you. For I am longing to see 
you, to impart to you some spiritual gift that you may be 

12 strengthened, or rather that we may both be comforted while 

13 1 am among you by our mutual trust, yours and mine. And 
I do not wish you to ignore the fact, 1 brothers, that many a 
time I have proposed to visit you — and I have been prevented 
up to this point — that I might win some harvest among you 

14 as I have done among the rest of the Gentiles. Both to 
Greeks and to Barbarians, both to wise and witless, 2 I am 

15 a debtor ; so I am all eagerness 3 to preach the Gospel to you 
also who are at . 



DOCTRINAL (i. l6-v) 

The Apostle's Conception of Christianity .? 
Justification by Faith (i. i6-iv) 

The thesis. First he enunciates his thesis in a twofold proposition : 
salvation is by faith and it is universal — not for the Jews 
only but for ' every one who has faith, both the Jew, in the 
first instance, and the Greek.' It may seem as though he 
invalidated his argument by inserting the phrase ' in the 
first instance ' and thus, apparently, according the Jews a 
position of preference. 4 This, however, were a misconstruc- 
tion of his thought. He indeed ascribes a priority to the 

1 dypoetv, ct n. on I Th. iv. 13, p. 163. 

* A comprehensive designation of the Gro-ile world. The Greeks were the 
cultured and enlightened Gentiles (<xo0oi), and the Barbarians the rude races 
(avorjroi). Gf. Hesych. : "EWrjves, <f>p6vip.oi etrc <ro<pol' fiapfiapot, &TraL8evroi. 
fidpfiapos is onomatopoetic, and denotes a foreigner who spoke an unintelligible 
language, mere ' babble ' in Greek ears. 

3 Three possible constructions : (i) rb /car' ip.i (cf. Eph. vi. 2 1 ; Col. iv. 7 ; Phil. 
i. 12) subj. and irp6dv/j,ov pred. : 'my disposition is eager to preach the Gospel.' 
rb kit' €/jl4 is then a periphrasis for iy&. (2) rb tear' £/j£ trpbdvfiov subj. and 
evayyeXio-aadai pred. : ' my eager desire {propensio ad me attinens) is to preach 
the Gospel.' (3) rb kclt' e/ie adverbial and parenthetic and irp6dvp,av nominal: 
' thus, so far as I am concerned, there is an eager desire to preach the Gospel.' 

4 Hence irpwrov h omitted by several authorities (BG, Tert,)« 



THE THIRD MISSION 381 

Jews, but it is a priority in opportunity and responsibility 
and not in privilege. They were the elect nation, and their 
history had been a prceparatio Evangelii. They were God's 
witnesses, the repositories and vehicles of His universal 
grace. The Synagogue was a divinely prepared nidus for 
the Gospel ; and therefore it was that wherever the Apostle 
arrived in the prosecution of his world-wide mission, he first cf. Ac. 
of all sought the Jewish community and presented his *£V *J viii 
message to them ; and it was only when they rejected it and 17-28. 
refused their vocation, that he turned to the Gentiles. The 
Jews stood first in opportunity, and when they failed, they 
stood first in condemnation. 

16 I am not ashamed of the Gospel : it is God's power for 
salvation to every one who has faith, both the Jew, in the 

17 first instance, and the Greek. For God's righteousness is 
evermore revealed in it as faith grows from more to more, 1 as Hab. ii. 4, 
it is written : ' The righteous man on the score of faith will cf - Gal 
live/ 



m. 
11. 



And now he proceeds to demonstrate his thesis. His its demon- 
argument is that other methods have been tried and have stratlon - 
conspicuously and lamentably failed. He adduces succes- 
sively the experiences of the Gentile world and the Jewish, 
and shows how neither has attained righteousness ; and then 
he introduces the divine remedy. What mankind has failed 
to achieve has been made possible in Christ. 



1. Failure of the Gentiles to attain Righteousness (18-32) 

The law of the moral order is twofold : first, unrighteous- Neglect of 
ness is ever pursued by the wrath of God, the indignation ! he r : vela " 

*• •* ' o tion in 

wherewith, inasmuch as He is holy, He must needs regard Nature. 
it and which, however its operation be delayed, issues in Cf - . Ps - £ 

* J > XXXIV. ID. 

inevitable judgment ; and, second, knowledge is the measure 



1 £k 7TiVr6ws els ttIcttiv, a Jewish phrase denoting gradual progress, advancement 
from stage to stage. Cf. the Rabbinical maxim (quoted by Wetstein) : ' A man 
sitting and studying in the Law advances from law to law, from ordinance to 
ordinance, from verse to verse.' This is the principle of intellectual progress, and 
it is the principle also of spiritual progress. Cf. 2 Cor. iii. 18 : dirb 56£r}t 
dt 86i;a.v, 



382 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

cf. Hi. to; of guilt • there is no guilt where there is no knowledge, no 
^ 4 k ; 1 Tim. transgression where there is no law. It may seem as though 
1 x 3- the latter clause cleared the Gentiles. They had no Law like 
the Jews, and their ignorance should have absolved them. 
In fact, however, they were not ignorant. They ' possessed 
the truth,' and their condemnation was that they ' possessed 
it in unrighteousness.' They had indeed neither the Jewish 
revelation in the Law nor the better revelation in Christ ; 
but they had the revelation in Nature, ' that universal and 
public manuscript that lies expans'd unto the eyes of all/ 
proclaiming the existence, the power, and the beneficence J 
of God. It was indeed meagre in comparison with the revela- 
tion of grace ; yet it was amply sufficient to render the un- 
righteousness of the Gentiles inexcusable, 
idolatry. They had a revelation, and they perverted it. They 
closed their eyes to the light, and they were stricken with 
judicial blindness. 2 The tragedy began in pride, and it 
ended in folly — the folly of idolatry. There were two sorts 
of idolatry in the ancient world. One was the idolatry 
of the Greeks — the worship of the human. Their gods were 
' magnified men/ more beautiful than mortals and also more 
passionate. They deified human attributes, and worshipped 
not only Apollo, the god of light and beauty, but Dionysus, 
the god of the wine- cup ; not only Athene, the goddess of 
wisdom, but Aphrodite, the goddess of lust. Then there 
was animal-worship, which had its chief home in Egypt, that 
land of prehistoric civilisation. It was a gross superstition, 
and it was derided by the heathen of the West, 3 who were 
thus far at least superior, that in worshipping the human 
they worshipped a true ' image of God.' Nevertheless both 
kinds of idolatry degraded their votaries. The law is that 
men grow like the objects of their worship ; and the heathen 
were like their idols — licentious and brutal. 

*3 For God's wrath is evermore revealed from heaven against 
all impiety and unrighteousness of men who possess the truth 

1 Implied in rjixapicrTrjc av (ver. 21). Cf. Ac. xiv. 17 ; xvii. 25. 

1 Cf. vers. 21, 22. Observe the transition from act. [ebb^aaav, 7]i>xapi<TTT]aau) 
to pass. {eiAarcmbdrjaav, iaKoricrdr], ifxwpdv 6 ] 7]<rav). The perversion of the revelation 
was their own act, and the consequence was God's judgment. They closed their 
eyes, and God blinded them. * Cf. Juv. XV. 1-4. 



THE THIRD MISSION 3S3 

19 in unrighteousness, 1 inasmuch as what may be perceived of 
God is manifest among them ; for God manifested it to them. 

20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes 
— His everlasting power and divinity — have been clearly seen, 2 
being conceived by His works, that they might be inexcusable, 

21 inasmuch as, though they had recognised God, they did not 
glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. No, they were 
stricken with futility in their reasonings, and their stupid 

22 heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they were be- 

23 fooled, and ' changed the glory ' of the incorruptible God Ps. cvi. ao. 
' for the similitude ' of an image of corruptible man and fowls 

and quadrupeds and reptiles. 3 

The evidence lay before all eyes in the actual condition of Moral 
the heathen world in those days ; and the Apostle points Jjof£ ada " 
to the prevalence of that unnatural vice which disgraced 
pagan society and stains so many pages of classical literature. 
He sees in it a direct judgment of God. The heathen 
abandoned God, and God abandoned them to uncleanness. 
Nor did the tragedy end there. Lust is, in the first instance, 
self-degradation ; but its malignant operation extends 
beyond the individual. ' It hardens all within, and petrifies 
the feeling/ and it makes the sinner a curse to his fellows. 
The prevailing licentiousness blasted the heathen world ; 
and the Apostle depicts this final stage of the moral declen- 
sion. 

24 And therefore God abandoned them in the lusts of their 
hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies might be degraded 

25 among them ; 4 since they exchanged the truth of God for the 
lie, 5 and adored and served the creature rather than the 

26 Creator, 6 who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this reason it 
is that God abandoned them to degrading passions. Their 

27 females exchanged the natural use for the unnatural ; and 

1 Karexeiv. not 'hold down' (R.V.), but a strengthened ^etv, 'have in one's 
grasp,' 'have and hold,' 'possess.' Cf. 2 Cor. vi. io. 

2 Kadopav (cf. Karix^v), a strengthened bpav. Cf. Job x. 4 : rj (ixnrep (Uporbs bp$ t 
Kadopds ; ' Is Thy clear vision as a mortal's vision ?' 

3 Cf. Strabo, 812. 

4 The MSS. vary between h a&rois (the better attested) and iv iavrolt. With 
the former dTifxafecrdai is pass. : ' that their bodies might be dishonoured among 
them ' j with the latter, mid. : ' that they might dishonour their bodies with one 
another. ' 

6 That is, 'the idol' (cf. Rev. xxi. 27, xxii. 15), since an idol (1) is itself false 
and (2) deceives its worshippers. 
• Cf. p. 220. 



SH LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the males likewise forsook the natural use of the female and 
were inflamed in their desire for one another, males with males 
working unseemliness and receiving in their own persons the 

28 inevitable retribution of their error. And as they did not 
think God worth keeping in recognition, God abandoned them 

29 to a worthless mind to do unfitting things. 1 They were 
replete with every sort of unrighteousness, rascality, greed, 
malice ; they were laden with ' murdering mischief/ 2 strife, 

30 craft, spitefulness ; whisperers, calumniators, haters of God, 3 
bullies, swaggerers, braggarts, 4 inventors of evils, 5 disobedient 

31 to parents, stupid, faithless, destitute of natural affection, 

32 pitiless. Fully cognisant of God's righteous ordinance, that 
those who practise such things are worthy of death, they not 
only do them but applaud those who practise them. 

justifica- It is a ghastly picture of cruelty and terror and despair, 
Apostle's 6 y e * ^ * s a s °ber delineation. It is drawn from life, and 
indictment perhaps the surest demonstration of its verisimilitude is a 
dom: l recital of certain large and definite enormities which cast a 

lurid light on the multitudinous details of the Apostle's 

indictment. 
(1) The (1) The practice of delation. A despot is never secure, 

delation.** anc * the Roman Emperors were haunted by continual 

1 A play upon doKifi&feiv and 6.86ki/xos (cf. note on I Th. v. 21, p. 165). 
Literally, 'as they did not approve God to have Him in full recognition, God 
abandoned them to a reprobate mind.' 

3 (pdovos 06vos, a jingling byword (cf. Gal. v. 21 T. R.), not to be pressed 
literally. Cf. Iamblichus (in Suidas) : rb Sevrepov rod <f>dt>vov ypd/x/xa i-4<ras evpois 
kv avTW tov <pbvov yeypa/uLfxivop. 

8 Either deocriyeis (act.), 'hating God,' Dei osores (Cypr., Euth. Zig.) or 
deocrvyeh (pass.), 'hated by God,' 'hateful to God,' Deo odibiles (Vulg.). The 
former is the more suitable to the context, all the other epithets being active. 
' Agitur enim de vitiis, non de poenis' (Grot.). It is true that, wherever else it 
occurs in extant literature, the word is passive ; but the active use is equally 
possible, and Suidas assigns both uses to it and takes it as act. here : ol i/irb deov 
fj.icrotiiJ.evoi, kclI ol Qebv p.LO~ovvT€S. irapd 5e Ttp ' Atoo~t6\<p ' deoorvyets ' o&xi ol vtt6 
Qeov fXLaovjuievoi d\V ol p.io'odi'Tes rbv Qe6v. 

4 y/3/)t<rrds, vTrepycpavovs, aXafovas. #/3/n$, coarse insolence, exhibited in physical 
violence (cf. Mt. xxii. 6; Lk. xviii. 32). virep <pxvla, insolent, overweening 
pride, the spirit of a haughty and scornful aristocrat (cf. Lk. i. 51). dXa^ovia, 
' braggadocio,' vain and unwarranted pretension. Def. Plat. : ££ts irpoo-iroi.r)TiKT) 
iyadou 7) dyaduiv t&v jxt) vTrapxovrwv. Cf. I Jo. ii. 16 : 17 a\a£ovla tov flLov, ' the 
braggart boast of life.' This article of the Apostle's indictment is illustrated by 
Juvenal's picture of the dangers of the city streets after nightfall (ill. 268 ff.). 

6 Existing vices lost their piquancy, and men taxed their ingenuity to invent 
new ones. Cf. Tac. Ann. VI. 1 : ' tuncque primum ignota antea vocabula reperta 
sunt' 



THE THIRD MISSION 385 

apprehension of conspiracy. What reason they had appears 
from the startling fact that of the twelve who reigned during 
the first century, only three were suffered to die natural 
deaths ; and it is little wonder that, breathing an atmosphere 
of suspicion, they pursued a policy of jealous surveillance 
and ruthless intimidation. It was a reign of terror. The 
merest trifle — a word, a jest, a look, a gesture — was liable 
to a sinister construction, and was visited with condign 
vengeance. The only safety lay in fulsome adulation and 
denunciation of offences against the imperial majesty ; and 
a law of Tiberius, assigning to the informer a share in his 
victim's property, 1 encouraged the iniquity which darkened 
the life of Rome until it was abolished during the brief reign 
of Pertinax (a.d. 192-193). A mere accusation sufficed. 
Condemnation was certain, and the victim generally an- 
ticipated his doom by self-destruction. 2 It is told that 
during the dark days of Nero's reign a drunken fellow used 
to go about the city singing the Emperor's songs and de- 
nouncing all who did not listen admiringly and contribute 
liberally. 3 The Roman satirist speaks of an informer 
' slitting throats with a fine-edged whisper ' ; 4 and it is the 
informers that the Apostle has in view when he speaks of 
' whisperers, calumniators.' 

(2) The prevalence of suicide. Here is the conclusion (2) The 
of an epistle where the philosopher Seneca discourses on the Sf sutddef 
uncertainty of the world : 5 ' You know this — to how many 
death is useful, how many it frees from tortures, poverty, 
complaints, punishments, disgust. We are not in the power 
of any so long as death is in our own power.' 

1 Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, 
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, 
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit ; 
But life, being weary of these worldly bars, 
Never lacks power to dismiss itself. 
If I know this, know all the world besides, 

1 Tac. Ann. II. 32. 

* Cf. Sen. De Bene/, in. 26. 

* Philostr. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. v. 39. 

4 Juv. iv. no : ' tenui jugulos aperire susurm.' 

* Efist. xci, 

2 B 



386 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

That part of tyranny that I do bear 
I can shake off at pleasure.' l 

Suicide was appallingly frequent in that age and, it is 
significant, less among the lower orders than among the 
wealthy and distinguished members of society. Sometimes 
it was resorted to as an escape from tyranny, but in most 
cases the motive was sheer weariness of life, the disgust of 
hearts sated with pleasure and sick of disillusionment. Amid 
the wealth and luxury and pride of her high civilisation 
Rome was stricken with the curse of her own iniquity. 

' On that hard Pagan world disgust 
And secret loathing fell. 
Deep weariness and sated lust 
Made human life a hell/ 

(3) The (3) The sadness of heathen society was matched by its 

heathen° f cruelty, It was, as the Apostle observes, not merely ' piti- 
society. \ ess ' b u t * destitute of natural affection/ that tenderness 
which the very brutes have for their kind and especially for 
their offspring. 2 If evidence be required, there is no lack. 
There is, for example, the horrible custom of destroying 
weakly children. Realise what it means that Seneca, a 
Roman scholar and gentleman, could write thus with never 
a qualm : 8 ' We strike down mad dogs ; we butcher a fierce 
and wild ox, and knife sickly cattle lest they infect the herd ; 
we destroy monstrous offspring ; children too, if they are born 
weakly and deformed, we drown. It is not anger but reason 
to separate the useless from the healthy.' And there is the 
barbarity of exposing infants. As soon as a child was born, 
it was brought and laid at its father's feet. If he ' took it 
up/ 4 it was reared in his family ; but he need not take it 
up unless he chose. If he shrank from the trouble and 
expense of rearing it or had already as many children as he 
desired and objected to further subdivision of the inheritance, 
he would let it lie ; and then it was ' exposed ' — thrown out 
to die on a mountain-side or other desolate place, like the 

* Shak. Jul. Cas. I. iii. 93 ff. 

1 CTopy-q. Chrys. compares Ecclus. xiii. 1 5 : irav rb t&ov &yair$ rb Spoiou aiJrov, 

KO.I &vdpUWOS TOP Tr\f}<Ti0V O.VT0V. 

9 Dc Ira, 1. 15. * Sustulity suscepit. 



THE THIRD MISSION 387 

infant (Edipus on Mount Cithseron. It is an eloquent fact 
that, though the Greek and Latin languages have each 
several words for ' house,' neither has a word for ' home.' 
And the reason is that it is * natural affection ' that makes a 
home, and lust had banished natural affection from the 
heathen world. Natural affection, and pity too. What 
pity was there in a society which tolerated the institution 
of slavery 1 and was entertained with gladiatorial combats 
and fights between criminals and wild beasts in the circus ? 2 
And these enormities provoked no protest. The heathen 
' not only did such things but applauded those who practised 
them.' That was the climax of their guilt, their utter con- 
demnation. The mere doing of evil need not argue depravity, 
since one may be hurried by passion into conduct which he 
disapproves in calmer mood, and one never realises the 
enormity of a sin until it has been committed and stands 
before him in hideous actuality. But it condemns a man if 
he contemplates wickedness and accords it his sympathy 
and approval. 

2. Failure of the Jews to attain Righteousness (ii, iii) 

The Apostle's indictment of heathendom would command indictment 
the approval of his Jewish readers. They despised the j^* 
Gentile world, and the exhibition of its depravity would 
gratify their national prejudice. But now he turns to the 
other side of his argument and shows that, if the Gentiles 
have failed to attain righteousness, the Jews have failed no 
less signally and with far less excuse. The very iniquities 
which they condemned in the Gentiles, they practised them- 
selves. 

ii. 1 And therefore you are inexcusable, you man whoever you 
are that judge. In passing judgment on your neighbour 
you pronounce judgment against yourself ; for you practise 
the self -same things, you that judge. 

It vitiated the moral judgment of the Jews that they Refutation 
conceived themselves as occupying a privileged position. ^ise co 
They were Abraham's descendants, and they reasoned that, fidence : 

1 Cf. pp. 569 ff. ? Cf. p. 254. 



388 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Cf. Mt. iii. since God had made a covenant with Abraham and his seed 
13l&, &. after him to all generations, they were permanently secure : 
whatever they might do, the engagement stood. Against 
this fatal confidence the Apostle arrays two stern truths, 
(i) impar- One is the impartiality of God's judgment. His sentence 
God's ° is ' according to truth ' : it is not arbitrary ; it is determined 
judgment, ^y re alities. The sole test recognised by Scripture is conduct : 
' He will render to each according to his works ' ; and the 
mistake of the Jews lay in their failure to perceive that their 
peculiar privileges were gracious appeals, and if they dis- 
regarded these, they would then receive the heavier doom. 
First in opportunity, they would be first in condemnation. 

2 We know that the doom of God lights according to truth on 

3 those who practise such things. But is this your reckoning, 
you man that pass judgment on those who practise such things 
and do them the while — that you will escape the doom of 

4 God ? Or is it that you despise the riches of His kindness 
and forbearance and long-suffering, ignoring the fact that the 

5 kindness of God is drawing you to repentance ? But, obdurate 
as you are and impenitent in heart, you are storing up for 
yourself wrath on the Day of Wrath — the Day when the 

Ps. lxii. 12; 6 righteousness of God's judgment will be revealed. He 'will 

Prov. xxiv. 7 ren der to each according to his works ' : to those who by the 

path of persistence in good work are seeking glory and honour 

8 and incorruption, life eternal ; while to those who are factious 
and disobedient to the truth but obedient to unrighteousness, 

9 the award will be wrath and fury. Distress and anguish will 
light upon every human being who works out evil, both the 

10 Jew, in the first instance, and the Greek. But glory and 
honour and peace are the portion of every one who works 

11 good, both the Jew, in the first instance, and the Greek. For 
there is no respect of persons with God. 1 

{2) Univer- The other truth is the universality of moral obligation. 
moJaiobii- Neither Jews nor Gentiles were exempt. For both alike 
gation. s j n involved condemnation — for the Gentiles who have no 
Law, since they have the revelation in Nature and Conscience; 
and for the Jews who have the Law, since it is not the know- 
ledge of the Law that avails but its observance. 

12 All who have sinned without the Law, without the Law will 
also perish ; and all who have sinned within the Law, in terms 

1 An epigram disposing of the Jewish claim to special privilege. Os 
TpoffwiroXrj/j'.ipla cf. p. 1 99. 



THE THIRD MISSION 389 

i3 of the Law will be judged. For it is not the hearers of the Law 
that are righteous with God ; no, it is the doers of the Law 

14 that will be accounted righteous (For, when Gentiles who have 
no Law, do by natural instinct the Law's requirements, these 
men, though they have no Law, are a Law to themselves, 

15 since they display the Law's work written on their hearts, 
their conscience bearing witness with it and their reasonings 

16 debating in condemnation or defence.) * on the Day when 
God judges the secrets of men according to my Gospel through 
Christ Jesus. 

Here is the principle which condemned the Jews and justified The vain 
the Apostle's indictment of them as no less guilty than the th^Law. 
Gentiles. Their very name was a proud distinction, since 
in the Hebrew Jew means ' praised ' ; and they boasted of Cf. Gen. 
their high privileges, oblivious that these were their heavy *]*£' 8. 5 ' 
condemnation. Here he has the Rabbis particularly in 
view — those Scribes and Pharisees whom the Lord had so Mt. xxiii. 
terribly impeached. They were the custodians and inter- 
preters of the Sacred Law, ' the Teachers of Israel ' ; and the J°- ni - IO - 
Apostle's allegation, like the Lord's, is that their conduct 
was a flagrant violation of their teaching and a stark in- 
validation of their pretensions. The Law forbade theft, and cf. Mt. 
the Rabbis practised it in the most heartless fashion by their ™* I4, 
cruel impositions and greedy exactions in the name of religion. 
The Law forbade adultery, and they were grossly inconti- 
nent. 2 They abhorred idols, yet, says the Apostle, they had 
no scruple in enriching themselves by the plunder of heathen 
temples. And the charge is amply authenticated. It is 
recorded 8 that in the year 19 a.d. a Jew, who had committed 

1 Another marginal* (cf . p. 245). The Apostle is here enforcing the universality 
of moral obligation, and in order to beat down the Jewish pretension to special 
privilege he has affirmed that the obligation rests no less on the tvvo\ioi than on 
the dvo/xoi. On reading over the manuscript he perceives the probability of the 
objection being raised that, while it is just that the Jews who sinned in spite of 
the restraint of the Law should be punished, it were unjust that the Gentiles, 
lacking that advantage, should be held guilty. And so he adds this marginal 
comment, recalling his previous statement (cf. i. 19, 20) that, though they have 
no special revelation, the Gentiles have the revelation in Nature and Conscience 
and are therefore inexcusable. Observe the graphic metaphor : a law-court with 
legal code, witness, prosecutor, advocate, judge. The Unwritten Law {ypairrbv 
ip reus Kapdtau avrQv) is the statute, Conscience the witness, their reasonings 
prosecutor and advocate, God the Judge. 

8 Cf- The Days of His Fleshy p. 414. • Jos. Ant. XVIII. iii. 5. 



xix. 37» 



390 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

some illegality in his own country and escaped to Rome, set 
up there as a Rabbi, and gained such influence over a wealthy 
proselyte, a Roman lady named Fulvia, that she entrusted 
him and three accomplices with the conveyance of a costly 
offering of purple and gold to the Temple at Jerusalem, and 
they appropriated it to their own use. The rascality which 
plundered the Lord's treasury, would not spare heathen 
Cf. Ac. shrines ; and the Jews of the Dispersion were notoriously 
addicted to temple-robbery, insomuch that a notion prevailed 
in the Gentile world that the name of their capital was 
originally Hierosyla, ' the Temple-robber,' and they had 
subsequently altered it to Hierosolyma. 1 Such was the 
odium which they thus incurred that a Jewish Law was 
enacted for the repression of the scandal. ' Let no one,' 
it ran, 2 ' blaspheme the gods which other cities recognise. 
No one must plunder alien temples or reset a treasure 
dedicated to any god.' 

17 But if you bear the grand name of ' Jew,' and pillow your 

18 head on the Law, 3 and boast in God, and read His will, and 

19 are an adept in casuistry, 4 having the Law by heart, 5 and are 
confident that you are yourself ' a guide of the blind/ ' a light 

20 to those in darkness,' 'an instructor of the senseless,' 'a 
teacher of babes,' possessing the embodiment of knowledge 

31 and truth in the Law ; 6 — you, then, that teach your neighbour, 
do you not teach yourself ? You that preach against stealing, 

32 do you steal ? You that talk about not committing adulter} 7 , 
do you commit it ? You that abhor idols, do you pillage 

1 Jos. Contra Apion. I. 34. 
% - Jos. Ant. iv. viii. 10. 

* Alexander the Great so admired Homer that he slept with the volume under 
his pillow. Cf. Plut. Alex. 8. Eustath. Pmfat. Iliad, i. 20 : rty 'OfirjpiKT\v 
/StjSXov aTaydfievos /cat rr t v Ke^aXrjv, ore vwvovv 64oi, ktra.vairaio}v adrrj. 

4 5oKifid£eis tcl 5t.a<p€povTa. doKifxafriv, either 'test' or 'approve' after testing 
(cf. note on 1 Th. v. 21, p. 165). 8i.a<p4peiv, either 'differ' or 'be better than.' 
Hence Sontfidfeiv ra 8ia.(pepovTa, either ' test the things that differ ' or ' approve the 
things that are excellent.' The former is preferable, the reference being to the 
Rabbical penchant for casuistical refinements, nice distinctions. Cf. The Days of 
His Flesh, pp. 132, 299, 413. 

* Ka.T7ixovfJ.tvos eK tov vSfiov, ' being catechised out of the Law.' ©ral instruction 
was the method in the Jewish schools, and a Jew had the Law committed to 
memory in childhood. Cf. p. 23. The Days of His Flesh, p. xvii. 

6 fj.6p<po>ffLS, either 'shaping,' or 'the thing shaped,' 'embodiment.' Suid. : 
tM>p<pu)(riv' <rxvt* a -Ti<rfi6i', eU6va. Here 'embodiment.' What a statue is to the 
sculptor's conception, that the Law is to knowledge and truth. 



THE THIRD MISSION 391 

*3 temples ? You who boast in the Law, do you by the trans- is. iu. 5 ; 

24 gression of the Law dishonour God ? For ' the name of God ^*\ * x |^ 
is on your account being calumniated among the Gentiles,' as X ii.'i4; 

it is written. Neh - v - 9- 

And no less futile was the Jewish confidence in the rite The vain 
of Circumcision. It was the seal of the Covenant between Qrcum- 
God and Abraham and his seed after him throughout their ^f Gen 
generations, the symbol of Israel's separation from defilement, *vii. 7-13- 
her consecration, her fellowship with God. 1 In course of 
time, however, the Jews had fallen into the crass error of 
confounding the symbol and the reality. They ascribed a 
magical efficacy to the mere rite and conceived it as con- 
stituting them heirs of the Promise and differentiating them 
from the Gentiles whom they stigmatised as ' uncircumcised 
dogs.' And thus, instead of keeping ever before them the 
necessity of purity of heart and life, it rendered them heed- 
less of ethical distinctions and inspired them with a spirit of 
national pride and religious bigotry. To this fatal mis- 
conception the Apostle opposes a twofold principle : since 
the value of Circumcision lies not in the mere rite but in its 
spiritual significance, it follows that, though the rite be ob- 
served, there is no true Circumcision where the spiritual reality 
is lacking, and, conversely, wherever there is the spiritual 
reality, there also is Circumcision, though the rite be lacking. 
A circumcised transgressor of the Law has no title to ' the 
grand name of Jew ' ; and an uncircumcised Gentile who 
keeps the Law is a son of Abraham and an heir of the Promise. 

25 For circumcision profits if you practise the Law ; but if you 
be a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has turned 

26 out uncircumcision. If, then, one who is circumcised keep 
the righteous requirements of the Law, will not his uncircum- 

27 cision be reckoned as circumcision ? And the man who from 
natural circumstances is uncircumcised, will in performing the 
Law judge you who, in possession of a written code and of 

28 circumcision, are a transgressor of the Law. For it is not the 
visible Jew that is really a Jew, nor is it the visible circum- 

1 Circumcision was older than the time of Abraham, and it was practised in 
after days not by the Jews alone but by the Edomites, the Ammonites, the 
Moabites, the Phoenicians, and the Egyptians (cf. Jer. ix. 25, 26). It was a 
Semitic usage, and its distinction in Israel was the significance attached to it, 
Cf. Hardwick, Christ and Other Masters^ pp. 490 ff. 



392 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

«9cision in the flesh that is really circumcision. No, it is the 
secret Jew that is really a Jew ; and his circumcision is circum- 
cision of heart, in spirit, not in a written code. And his 
' praise ' is not from men but from God, 

Jewish The Apostle has now established his thesis. He has 

objections : demonstrated the failure of mankind, the Jews no less than 
the Gentiles, to attain righteousness ; and it remains that 
he should press home the inevitable conclusion and exhibit 
God's remedy for the universal malady — Justification by 
Faith. But here he pauses and, to ' make assurance double 
sure ' and close every loophole of escape, he reviews a series 
of objections which a Jew might urge. They are the diffi- 
culties which had engaged his own mind at the crisis of his 
religious experience ; and he presents them in a sort of musing 
soliloquy. Meanwhile he merely states them summarily and 
dismisses them abruptly, reserving their discussion. And 
he resumes them in the subsequent course of his argument, 
i. What of First, on the principle of Justification by Faith in Christ 
apart from the Works of the Law, what becomes of Israel's 
historic pre-eminence ? If her distinctive rite of Circum- 
cision was worthless, she was reduced to the common level 
of the nations of mankind. The answer is that Israel's 
supreme distinction was that she had been the repository of 
revelation ; and that was an imperishable glory. 

iii. i ' What becomes, then, of the pre-eminence of the Jew, or 
2 of the profit of the Circumcision ? ' It is a great thing 
from every point of view. Primarily because they were 
entrusted with the Oracles of God. 1 

2. What of Again, what of the faithfulness of God ? He was pledged 

faithful- t° Israel by an inviolable covenant ; and whatever her 

ness? unfaithfulness, He would stand true. Of course a covenant 

is a mutual agreement and it is cancelled by the disloyalty 

of either party ; but the Apostle does not stay to expose the 

fallacy. He simply repudiates the vain argument. 

3 ' Very well ; if some proved unfaithful, will their unfaithful- 

4 ness invalidate the faithfulness of God ? ' Away with the 

1 \6yiov in classical literature 'an oracle'; so generally 'a divine utterance.' 
Cf. Philo's irepl r&v S^Ka \oyiwv, the Ten Commandments (cf. Ac. vii. 38). 
Here, the O. T. Scriptures. 



pre-emin- 

P. C«»? 



THE THIRD MISSION 393 

idea ! No, let God prove true and ' every man a liar ' ; as it Ps. cxvi. 
is written, ' that Thou mightest be found righteous in Thy f/ s H 
causes and prevail when Thou pleadest.' l 

Further, according to the teaching of the Gospel, our 3. what 
unrighteousness serves to illustrate God's righteousness, ° ille £ 
which shows all the clearer against the dark background ; condemn? 
and this suggests the question whether He can fairly visit 
us with His displeasure. The Apostle dismisses the sugges- 
tion as preposterous. It is a denial of the moral government 
of the world. 

5 ' But if our unrighteousness commends God's righteousness, 
what are we to say ? Is God unrighteous who inflicts wrath ? 

6 It is mere human language that I am using.' Away with the 
idea ! In that case how will God judge the world ? 

And here emerges also a moral problem : If sin redounds 4 . what 
to the glory of God, there is no harm in sinning. Rather obSgatton? 
should we sin the more that God may be the more glorified. 
This is the odious charge of antinomianism which the Judaists 
urged against the Gospel and which the Apostle presentty cf. vi, vii. 
handles at length. Meanwhile he dismisses his traducers 
with indignant contempt : ' Their doom is righteous.' 

7 ' But if my lie advanced God's glory by magnifying His 

8 truth, why am J still judged as a sinner ? And why not ' — as 
we are calumniously represented and some allege that we say — 
' "let us do evil that good may come " ? ' Their doom is 
righteous. 

He has thus swept away every subterfuge. His opponents jews and 
have shot their last bolt but, reluctant to acknowledge aHk^coa- 
defeat, they petulantly exclaim : ' So it comes to this, that £ en g"jf 
we Jews are actually worse than the Gentiles ! ' ' Not at ture. 
all/ he answers. ' That is not my contention. My charge 
is not that the Jews are worse than the Gentiles, but that 

1 iv roh \6yois <tov, 'in Thy causes' (cf. Ac. xix. 38). xpiveffdat, mid., 
'plead,' 'go to law' (cf. I Cor. vi. 6), not pass., 'be judged.' The LXX 
rendering, which the Apostle follows, is a mistranslation. The Hebr. means : 
1 that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou 
judgest,' where the Psalmist (not God) is on trial and confesses the justice of 
God's sentence. The Apostle's use of the O. T. is literary rather than dogmatic, 
and the LXX rendering here illustrates his argument. 



394 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

they are both in the same case : both alike have failed to 
attain righteousness and stand condemned before God.' 
And he appeals to the Scripture, that tribunal which was 
authoritative and final in Jewish eyes. It pronounced a 
verdict of universal guilt, bringing not the Gentiles alone 
but the whole world under condemnation. 

9 ' What, then ? Are we worse than they ? ' * Not at all ; 
we have already laid it to the charge of both Jews and Greeks 
io that they are all under sin. And so it is written : 

Ps. xiv. i- ' There is none righteous, not even one ; 

3 * ii There is none that understands, there is none that seeks 

after God ; 
12 They have all turned aside, they have all with one accord 
become unprofitable ; 
There is none that does kindness, there is not so much as 
one. 
Ps. v. 9. I3 A sepulchre wide open is their throat ; 

With their tongues they have spoken guile. 
The poison of adders is under their lips. 
Whose mouth of cursing and bitterness is full. 
Swift are their feet to shed blood ; 
Destruction and wretchedness are in their ways, 
And the way of peace have they not recognised. 
There is no fear of God before their eyes.' 2 
Now we know that every word of the Law is spoken 3 to 
those who are within the Law, that every mouth may be 
stopped and all the world be brought under the condemnation 
20 of God ; because on the score of works of law ' shall no flesh 

1 So R.V. ('are we in worse case than they?'), taking 7rpoex<fy*e0a as pass. : 
' are we excelled ' or ' surpassed ' (by the Gentiles) ? A petulant question of the 
baffled Jews. Otherwise: (i) wpoex^P-iOa in act. sense: 'are we better than 
they?' So A.V. after Vulg. pracdlimus eos? That is, 'have we Jews any 
superiority over the Gentiles ? ' And then the Apostle's answer is : ' None what- 
soever ; for we have just found Jews and Gentiles equally guilty.' It is a fatal 
objection to this construction that it would require irpoix ^ 1 ^- The mid. 
Trpo£x e< ?6 aL never occurs in the sense of 'excel.' (2) irpotxwO* 1 in mid. sense: 
'do we excuse ourselves?' (R.V. marg.), 'have we any plea to urge, any excuse 
to offer, any defence to make ? ' trpoix^^ - 1 is frequent in the sense of ' hold out 
a 7r/>6crx??Aia,' i.e., a defence or excuse; but this is here inadmissible, since the 
verb in this sense is always followed by an accus. denoting the pretext offered. 

8 This array of O. T. proof-texts was probably derived from a primitive 
collection of 'testimonies' (cf. p. 229). The entire passage (vers. 10-18) stands 
in LXX Version of Ps. xiv, having doubtless been interpolated from the Epistle 
by a Christian copyist. 

* \4yeip refers to the meanings XaKeiv to the languagt. Cf. Mt. xxvi. 73; 
Jo. iv. 41, 42, viii. 43. 



Ps. cxl. 3. 




Ps. x. 17. 


14 


Is. lix. 7, 8. 


15 




16 




17 


Ps. xxxvi. 


18 


1. 


19 


Ps. cxliii. 


20 


2. 





THE THIRD MISSION 395 

be accounted righteous in His sight.' For through law is full 
recognition of sin. 1 



3. God's Way to attain Righteousness (iii. 21-31) 

The Apostle's argument has now reached its goal. He has justifica- 
demonstrated the failure of the Gentiles to attain righteous- p°" tl ^ y 
ness and the no less disastrous failure of the Jews despite 
their privileges ; and so he proceeds to the inevitable con- 
clusion. Other methods have failed, and we are shut up to 
God's method — Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This he cf. i. 16, 
has already defined in stating the thesis of his argument ; I7, 
and here he presents a more precise definition as a basis for 
subsequent discussion. First, it is no novel device. It is 
attested by the Old Testament Scriptures ; and even as the 
Incarnation was a ' manifestation ' of the Eternal Saviour, cf. Coi. i. 
so the Gospel is the ' manifestation ' of an eternal grace. ? 6 ; J J°* 
Further, it is the satisfaction of a universal need. Jews and 
Gentiles alike are under condemnation, and justification is a 
free gift of God. It is offered in Christ, and it is appropriated 
by faith. And, finally, it offers a righteous remission, at 
once meeting the requirements of the moral order and satis- 
fying the moral instincts of the soul. And the reason is that 
it rests on ' redemption.' Sin has been expiated by the 
vicarious love of God in Christ. Christ is the Mercy-seat, 
the meeting-place between God and sinners ; and the Mercy- 
seat is sprinkled with sacrificial blood. 

21 But, as the case stands, apart from the Law a righteousness 
of God has been manifested, being attested by the Law and 

22 the Prophets ; a righteousness of God, however, 2 through 
faith in Jesus Christ reaching all who have faith. There is 

23 no distinction ; for all have sinned and lack the glory of God. 3 

24 They are freely accounted righteous by His grace through the 

25 redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth 

1 This principle is elaborated in vii. 7-25. 

* Not righteousness simply, but a righteousness of 7. particular sort. Cf. ix. 30. 

* T$fj.apToi>, aor. defining the past as one great aggregate of transgressions. 
varcpovvrai, mid., 'feel their want of (cf. Lk. xv. 14). Sin is not merely a past 
fact but a present and conscious misery. ' The glory of God ' is His irradiating 
and gladdening presence, and sinners feel sorrowfully their lack of it. 



396 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

as a Mercy-seat * through faith, besprinkled with His blood, 

for a demonstration of His righteousness on the score of the 

pratermission of sins previously committed during the for- 

36 bearance of God 8 — to demonstrate, I repeat, His righteousness 

at the present hour, that He may be Himself righteous while 

accounting the man righteous who holds by faith in Jesus. 

Cf. ii. 17, 27 Where, then, is the boasting ? It is excluded. Through 

2 3- what manner of law ? That of works ? No, but through 

28 faith's law. For we reckon that a man is accounted righteous 

29 by faith apart from works of law. Or is God the God of Jews 
only ? Is He not the God of Gentiles also ? Yes, of Gentiles 

30 also, seeing that God is one, and He will account the circum- 
cised righteous on the score of faith and the uncircumcised 
through their faith. 3 

31 Are we, then, invalidating the Law through faith ? Away 
with the idea ! No, we are establishing the Law. 



4. Consonance of Justification by Faith with Scripture (iv) 

scriptural The Apostle has concluded his definition of the doctrine 
oithe ° e oi Justification by Faith in Christ with an emphatic contra- 
Apostie's Action of the Jewish objection that it invalidated the Law. 

doctrine. J . J 

This was -prima facie a reasonable objection; and he proceeds 
to consider it and prove that his doctrine was consonant with 
the Law. r The Law ' had a double signification. In its 
narrower use it denoted the Mosaic code of ceremonial pre- 
scriptions, and this had indeed been abrogated by the Gospel. 
It was merely a preparatory discipline, and it had served 
its function. In its larger use, however, the term signified 
the Scriptures of the Old Testament — the Prophets and the 



1 IXaarrjpiov . Cf. Tke Atonement in the Light of History and the Modern 
Spirit, pp. 160 ff. 

* Until Christ came and made atonement for the sin of the world, there was no 
Aleves, 'remission,' 'letting go'; only -rrdpevis, ' praeter mission, ' i.e., 'letting go 
in the meantime ' in view of a future settlement. The disposition which prompted 
the Trdpearis was duoxv, 'forbearance.' Cf. Ac. xvii. 30. 

* en and did are here practically interchangeable, yet there is a subtle dis- 
tinction, ix denotes the source, did the instrument. The Jews derived justification 
from works, and the Apostle derived it from faith. The Law, again, is the 
instrument of salvation ; and since the Gentiles had no Law, it might seem that 
they had no instrument. But, says the Apostle, the true instrument of salvation 
is faith. The Jews regarded the Law as the source of salvation, and he tells them 
that faith is the source ; the Gentiles might regard the Law as the means of 
salvation, and he tells them that faith is the means and they do not need 
the Law. 



THE THIRD MISSION 397 

Hagiographa as well as the Law of Moses ; x and with these, 
the Apostle will now demonstrate, the doctrine of Justifica- 
tion by Faith is in profound agreement. 

He appeals to the history of Abraham, the father of Israel ; The 
and there are three links in the chain of his argument. Abraham : 

Abraham was justified not by works but by faith. He (1) justified 
did not earn righteousness ; he received it. It was a free works but 
gift of grace. Nor was his experience singular. It was the h y faith - 
experience of the Psalmist long afterwards. Justification 
by Faith is thus the doctrine of the Scriptures. They recog- 
nise no other way. 

iv. 1 What, then, shall we say of Abraham, the forefather of 

2 our race ? 2 If Abraham was accounted righteous on the 
score of works, he has something to boast of. But he has 

3 nothing to boast of in relation to God. For what says the 
Scripture ? ' And Abraham had faith in God, and it was Gen. xv. 6. 

4 reckoned to him as righteousness.' Now to one who works 
the wage is not reckoned in terms of grace but in terms 

5 of debt ; whereas to one who does not work but reposes 
faith on Him who accounts the impious righteous, his faith 

6 is reckoned as righteousness. Thus David also speaks of 
the blessedness of the man to whom God reckons righteous- 
ness apart from works : 

7 ' Blessed are they whose lawlessnesses have been remitted Ps. xxxii. 

and whose sins have been covered ; x > 2 * 

8 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never reckon.' 



Circumcision was not the ground but the seal of Abraham's (2) cjr : 
justification. The Jewish doctrine was that, unless a man was onijahe" 
circumcised, he could not be saved. He was outside thef^J° fbis 

justifica- 

Covenant. Look, says the Apostle, at Abraham. He was tion. 
accounted righteous on the ground of his faith, and then he J* ** xv 
received the rite of Circumcision. It was not the ground of 
his justification but merely its seal. The order was Faith, 
Justification, Circumcision ; and the Jewish error lay in 
omitting Faith and putting Circumcision before Justification 
as its antecedent and necessary condition. 

1 Cf. iii. 19 (referring to the foregoing quotations from Psalter and Isaiah) ; 
I Cor. xiv. 21 ; Jo. x. 34. 

a Most authorities insert ci'prjicfrai either (tfACDEFG) after ipovficv ('what 
shall we say that Abraham, our forefather after the flesh, has found ? '), or (KLP) 
after rbv Trpoir&Topa itfiQp ('that Abraham, our forefather, has found after the 
flesh?')- It is omitted by B 27 Chrys., and is probably a grammatical gloss. 



398 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

9 Is this blessedness, then, the portion of the circumcised or 
of the uncircumcised also ? We say : ' His faith was reckoned 

io to Abraham as righteousness/ How, then, was it reckoned ? 
When he was circumcised or while he was still uncircumcised ? 
Not when he was circumcised but while he was still uncircum- 
Gen. xvii. n cised. And he received ' the sign ' of Circumcision, a seal of 
the righteousness which his faith, while he was still uncir- 
cumcised, won him ; that he might be the father of all who 
have faith though in a state of uncircumcision, that righteous- 

12 ness might be reckoned to them, and a circumcised father for 
those who do not hold by Circumcision only but also tread l 
in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham displayed 
while still uncircumcised. 

L 3 ) Th f L The Promise did not rest on the Law but on Faith. The 

basis of the _ . ..... 

Promise Apostle has already demonstrated this proposition m his 
Law but letter to the Galatians by appealing to the historical fact 
Faith - that the promise to Abraham preceded the delivery of the 
Gai. iii. 17. Law to Moses at Mount Sinai by fully four centuries. Here, 
however, his argument is theological. He shows that the 
idea of Promise is alien from the domain of Law. It belongs 
to the domain of Grace, and the domains of Law and Grace 
are incompatible, mutually exclusive. In the former it is 
merit that counts ; and if the inheritance is to be won by 
merit, then the Promise and the faith which grasps it are 
eliminated : faith has been made an empty thing and the 
Promise invalidated. Experience attests this. For there is 
no merit in sinful man ; the Law merely discovers his sinful- 
ness and establishes his liability to the wrath of God. It 
brings not promise but condemnation. Where there is no 
Law, there is sin indeed, but no transgression, no guilt, and 
hence no wrath. And the Promise belongs not to the domain 
of Law but to the domain of Grace. It is received by faith. 
It was indeed on the ground of his righteousness that Abra- 
ham received it ; but then it was on the ground of his faith 
that he was accounted righteous, and it was his faith that 
held fast the Promise in face of all that seemed to belie it. 

1 The art. (rots) before vroixovaiv is superfluous, making it appear as though 
two distinct classes were intended — 'those who hold by faith' and 'those who 
tread in the steps of Abraham's faith ' ; whereas there is only one class — believing 
Jews who are circumcised and at the same time share the faith which justified 
Abraham while still uncircumcised. 



THE THIRD MISSION 399 

13 It was not the Law that brought the Promise to Abraham 
or his seed, that he should be heir of the world ; no, it was the 

14 righteousness which faith won him. If it be those who hold 
by Law that are the heirs, faith has been made an empty 

15 thing and the Promise invalidated. For the Law works out 
wrath ; but where there is no Law, neither is there trans- 

i6gression. Therefore it is on the score of faith, that it may 
be in terms of grace, in order that the Promise may be firm 
for all the seed — not those who hold by the Law only but 
also those who hold by the faith of Abraham, who is the father 

1 7 of us all, as it is written : ' The father of many nations have Gen.xvh.5. 
I made you.' And they hold by Abraham's faith in the sight 

of Him in whom he reposed it, even God who makes the dead 

live and calls things which have no being as though they cf. 1 Cor. i. 

18 had. On hope where hope there was none, he built his faith, 28. 
that he might become ' the father of many nations,' according 

19 to the saying : ' So shall your seed be.' And without weaken- Gen. xv. 5. 
ing in his faith he contemplated his own body with its vitality 

gone, since he was some hundred years old, and the devitalisa- 

20 tion of Sarah's womb ; yet in view of the promise of God he 
never wavered for lack of faith. No, his faith put power into 

21 him, and he gave glory to God, satisfied 1 that what He has 

22 promised He has power also to do. And therefore also ' it 
was reckoned to him as righteousness.' 

23 Now it was not written for his sake only that ' it was reckoned 

24 to him,' but also for the sake of us to whom it shall be reckoned 
— us who repose faith on Him that raised Jesus our Lord from 

25 the dead, who ' was delivered up for our trespasses ' and raised is. liii. za 
that we might be accounted righteous. Lxx * 



5. A Devotional Interlude (v) 

The Apostle has now accomplished his main task : he has a pause in 
established his thesis that Justification is by Faith in Christ Sent 8 "" 
and not by the Works of the Law. Serious problems still 
remain, but ere addressing himself to these he pauses to 
commend his doctrine and enforce its blessed consequences. 

He begins with an exhortation. Our faith in Christ has The privi- 
won us a new standing in God's sight : let us realise it and {Sea 1 : e 
appropriate its privileges. 

1 TrXrjpotpoprjdeis. The verb was used in the Common Greek of satisfying a 
person by paying him his due. Cf. Oxyrh. Pap. 509, 10 f. : Tvyx&vw Si 
T€Tr\rjpo<t>opT}ij.£i'os rots 6<pei\ofx£vois uoi, ' it happens that I have been satisfied in 
respect of the sums due to me.' So here the idea is that Abraham regarded God's 
promise as equal to the fulfilment. 



4 oo LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

(?) Peace The first of these is peace -with God— the peace of recon- 
ciliation. We are done with our guilty past. Christ has 
dealt with it. His infinite Sacrifice has expiated the sin of 
the whole world, and forgiveness is ours. The invitation of 
the Gospel is not ' Have faith in Christ, and you will be 
forgiven,' but ' You are forgiven : have faith and be at peace.' 

( 2 ) a giori- Nor is it the past alone that Christ has transfigured. He 

ous hope. _ * , . ., 

has transfigured the future also ; and the second privilege 
of the justified is a glorious hope. Our destiny is Heaven, 
Cf. iii. 27, our heritage the Glory of God ; and though we may not boast 
in the Law, we may well boast in this. 

(3) a pre- And our third privilege is a present comfort. It is ours 
fort. not merely to boast in the glory which awaits us but to boast 

in the distresses which now encompass us. And the secret 
lies in recognising the precious use which life's sorrow and 
suffering are designed to serve, the blessing which, when they 
are employed aright, they surely bring. Distress is a sacred 
discipline. It is like the testing of a bar of metal. First, 
it ' works out endurance,' discovering our weakness and our 
strength. If we be weak, it breaks us ; if we be strong, we 
stand the strain. And then we are ' approved.' And, 
finally, ' approbation works out hope.' It confirms our 
' hope in the glory of God ' ; for it is only a present experi- 
ence of the operation of grace that assures us of its future 
consummation. What God has already done for us is an 
earnest of the greater things which He will yet do. 

v. 1 Being, then, accounted righteous on the score of faith, let 
us have * peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 

2 through whom also we have gained the entree 2 by faith into 
this grace in which we stand ; and let us make the hope 

3 of the glory of God the ground of our boasting. 3 And, more 
than that, let us boast in our distresses ; knowing that 

1 The overwhelming weight of documentary evidence supports ^x^^ v ' The 
variant ^x°^ v is a mere itacism, and even if it were more strongly supported, it 
should be rejected on internal evidence. Cf. I Cor. xv. 49, where the weakly 
attested <pop£aop.zv is certainly authentic. 

* irpoo-aywyf) (cf. Eph. ii. 18, iii. 12 ; I Pet. iii. 18), 'introduction,' admission 
to the king's audience, presentation at court (cf. Xen. Cyrop. I. iii. 8 ; vir. v. 45). 
Christ is our Tr/socraywyetJs. Cf . Heb. vi. 20. 

3 /cai>xw/te0a may be either indie, or conj. Both here and in next ver. it is 
best regarded as conj., continuing the exhortation of ^xw/^p. 



THE THIRD MISSION 401 

4 distress works out endurance, and endurance approbation, 1 
3 and approbation hope. And the ' hope does not put to p s . xxii. 5 ; 
shame/ because the love of God has been poured forth in our cf - ? s - 

XXXIV c " 

hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given us. kccius. ». 

10, 11. 

Perhaps, it may be objected, our hope of the glory of God Their 
is no better than a mere dream, a fond illusion ; and when guarantee, 
the cold reality is discovered it will put us to shame. No, 
the Apostle answers, it is no empty dream, and its guarantee 
is not simply the subjective testimony of the Holy Spirit's 
revelation of God's love but the objective testimony of our 
Lord's Death. Here is the supreme demonstration of the 
love of God ; and it is an amazing love, transcending the 
utmost range of human devotion. ' Greater love,' says our jo. xv. 13. 
Lord, ' has no man than this, that a man lay down his life 
for his friends.* He would never die for an enenry ; he would 
hardly die for ' a righteous man ' — one like the Roman Cato, 
upright and just yet stern and pitiless ; he might die for ' a 
good man/ kindly and generous. This is the farthest reach 
of human love ; but here is the wonder of the love of God — 
that, when we were not ' good,' when we were not even 
' righteous,' when we were ' sinners,' nay, ' enemies,' Christ 
died for us. And this is the guarantee that our hope of the 
glory of God is no fond illusion. A love like that will never 
fail us. It will carry our salvation to its eternal consumma- 
tion. 

6 For if Christ, while we were still weak, 2 in due season died 

7 for the impious (Hardly for a righteous man will one die ; 
it is for the good man that perhaps one even has the hardihood 

1 Cf. n. on 1 Th. v. 21, p. 165. 

* The text is very uncertain. (1) The best supported reading is 2n yap Xpiaros 
h tcov TifxCov &<r0ev&v Ztl. This simplifies the construction of the passage, but the 
double en is intolerable. (2) et ye (B, Aug.), 'seeing that,' quandoquidem 
(a questionable rendering), making ver. 6 a continuation of ver. 5. (3) eU ri ydp 
(D b FG, Iren., Vulg. tit quid enirn), 'for wherefore?' (4) el yap (Isid. Pel. 
Ep. ir. 117, and a few Latin authorities, si enim), making ver. 6 the protasis, 
vers. 7, 8 a parenthesis, and ver. 9 the apodosis. This is probably the original 
reading. Vers. 7, 8 are, as the omission of odv in ver. 9 by numerous authorities 
indicates, a marginale (cf. p. 245 and n. on ii. 14, 15) ; and the various readings are 
copyists' devices to smooth the construction after the comment had been intro- 
duced into the text. Vers. 6, 9 and ver. 10 are thus similarly constructed 
sentences. 

2 C 



402 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

8 to die ; * but God commends His own love toward us inasmuch 

gas, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.), much 

more, being accounted righteous now that we are sprinkled 

with His blood, 2 we shall be saved through Him from the 

io Wrath. If, being enemies, we were reconciled to God through 

the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall 

ii be saved in His life — being reconciled and, more than that, 

boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom 

we have now obtained the reconciliation. 

Theprin- Reconciliation was a master-thought in the Apostle's 
Recondiia- theology, 3 and his contemplation of the privileges which it 
tion— im- brings has kindled his heart ; and now, ere resuming his 
argument, he lingers over it and unfolds its significance. 
First he exhibits the principle which underlies it. It is the 
principle which theologians have denominated Imputation 
and which modern science has illumined by its doetrines 
of Heredity and the Solidarity of the Race. 4 Humanity is 
not a congeries of isolated individuals but a vital organism ; 
and generations and individuals are all interrelated. The 
principle has a twofold operation. On the one hand, the 
sin of the fathers is their children's heritage and the curse 
of wrong rests upon the innocent. And, on the other hand, 
the righteousness of the fathers is likewise their children's 
heritage, and each noble life blesses the race. Hence not 
only is the sin of Adam, its first head, imputed to mankind, 
but so also is the righteousness of Christ, its Second 
sCor.v. i 9 . Head ; and thus God is 'in Christ reconciling the world 
to Himself/ 

1 SIkclios, 'righteous,' observing the letter of the law, doing strict justice — a 
character of rigid rectitude not without severity, ayadbt, 'good,' 'kindly,' an 
epithet of Barnabas (Ac. xi. 24). The idea appears in Marcion's distinction 
between the Justus Deus of the Old Testament and the bonus Deus of the New. 
Cf. Sayings of the Fathers, V. 16 (Taylor, p. 89) : 'There are four characters in 
men. He that saith " Mine is mine, and thine is thine " is an indifferent character : 
he that saith " Mine is thine, and thine is mine" is a worldling [practising 'give 
and take 5 ]: " Mine and thine are thine," pious: " Thine and mine are mine," 
wicked. 5 Cf. Plut. Cat. Maj. V : kcl'ltoi tt)v xpV( rT ^ T V Ta T V* Sucaioatirvis TrXartirepov 
rbirov bpCstiev £TrCka.ixfiavov<ra.v, 'goodness moves in a larger sphere than justice.' 

* Cf. iii. 25. The worshippers as well as the Mercy-seat were sprinkled with 
sacrificial blood (cf. Ex. xxiv. 8 ; Heb. ix. 19). 

• Cf. The Atonement in tht Light of History and the Modsrn Spirit ', pp. in f. 
4 Ibid., pp. 182 ff. 



THE THIRD MISSION 403 

The Apostle does not merely affirm the principle of Im- The impu- 
putation : he demonstrates it. And his argument is that Adam's sin 
death is the penalty of sin, and since death is universal, it P rove{ * b * v 

tr J > ' the univer- 

follows that sin is universal also. But ' where there is no saiity of 
Law, neither is there transgression.' There may indeed be c e f a iv ; i S> 
sin where there is no Law, but there is no guilt, since ' sin is 
not taken into the reckoning when there is no Law.' Now 
it was ages after the Fall that the Law was delivered at Sinai. 
Throughout the long interval between Adam and Moses there 
was no Law and therefore there should have been no death. 
But in fact death reigned even then. Sin was taken into 
the reckoning, and was visited with the penalty of death ; 
and what was the reason ? It might be alleged that mankind 
had never lacked the knowledge of God. Ere the Law was Cf. j. 19. 
given at Sinai, it was written on their hearts ; and thus they "[ v 
' sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam.' 
They sinned with open eyes, and merited the penalty of 
death. This, however, will not suffice, since death was 
absolutely universal. It was the portion of unconscious 
infants and those who lacked the light of reason. And thus 
no other reason remains save that Adam's sin was imputed 
to his posterity, Omnes peccarunt, Adamo peccante. His 
sin was theirs; and, sharing his sin, they shared also its 
penalty. 

12 Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, 
and through sin death, and thus death spread to all mankind 

13 inasmuch as all sinned ; 1 — for prior to the Law sin was in the 
world, but sin is not taken into the reckoning when there is 

14 no Law ; yet death reigned from Adam on to Moses even over 
those who did not sin after the similitude of the transgres- 
sion of Adam, who is the type of the future Saviour. 

The apparent flaw in this chain of reasoning is the assump- is death ■ 
tion, which the Apostle treats as a self-evident axiom, that ofVn 6 ?* 
death is the penalty of sin. That was indeed the Jewish 

1 W $* (l) 'because,' 'inasmuch as,' propter ea quod; (2) 'on condition that,"' 
id lege ut. Cf. Moulton and Milligan, Vocab. Vulg., with Fathers, in quo, 'in 
whom (i.e., Adam) all sinned.' This construction is impossible, since (1) the 
anteced. ivbs dvOpuiirov is too remote, and (2) it would require tv <£. Neverthe- 
less it truly defines the Apostle's thought: 'all sinned,' not actually but in 
Adam, as he proceeds to explain. • 



404 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Cf. Gen. doctrine. ' There is no death,' taught the Rabbis, ' without 
"' 1? ' sin, and no chastisement without iniquity ' ; x - and the idea 
established itself in Christian theology. It was accounted a 
heresy by St. Augustine and St. Jerome when Pelagius 
denied it and maintained that Adam was created mortal 
and would have died though he had never sinned. Never- 
theless it is an untenable notion. Death is no curse entailed 
by sin. It is, as the Stoic philosophers recognised, 2 an ordin- 
ance of Nature ; and, says our English essayist, 3 ' all that 
Nature has prescribed must be good ; and as Death is natural 
to us, it is absurdity to fear it.' It is a natural law, and its 
operation is universal. The leaves and flowers, the birds and 
beasts, no less than sinful man, obey it. And it is a bene- 
ficent ordinance. ' Death,' says St. Bernard, ' is the door 
of life.' It is not destruction but transition into a larger, 
richer, and nobler condition. 

' All that lives must die, 
Passing through nature to eternity ' — 

jo. xii. 24. a truth which our Lord proclaimed when He said : ' Unless 
the grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it remains 
itself alone.' Yet the Apostle affirms that death is the con- 
sequence and penalty of sin : ' through one man sin entered 
into the world, and through sin death.' It may seem at 
the first glance as though, like St. Augustine and St. Jerome, 
he were here following in the footsteps of the Rabbis and 
repeating the doctrine which he had learned in the school 
of Gamaliel ; but this were a hasty conclusion, and on closer 
scrutiny the profound truth of his argument is recognised. 
The His affirmation is that ' through one man sin entered into 

nse°of ies tne world, and through sin death,' and ' just as in Adam all 
the term fo e so a i so j n Christ all shall be made live' ; and the essential 

' death. ' ' 

i Cor. xv. question is what the term ' death ' here signifies. If it be 
merely the dissolution of the body, then the Apostle's argu- 
ment breaks down. For Christ does not exempt His people 
from death in that sense of the term. All still die, believers 

1 Cf. Wetstein on Rom. v. 12. 

a Cf . Sen. Nat. Quast. vi. 32 : ' Mors naturae lex est, mors tributum officiumquc 
mortalium, malorum omnium remedium est.' 
8 Addison, Sped. 152. 



22 



THE THIRD MISSION 405 

and unbelievers alike. It is incredible that this flaw in his 
reasoning, at once so fatal and so obvious, should have 
eluded his acute observation. He must have attached 
another significance to the term ; and that he actually did 
appears from the fact that in the course of his magnificent 
argument on the Resurrection of the Body he expressly 
affirms the necessity of the dissolution of the physical 
organism in order to the fuller life which is the goal of re- 
demption. ' What you sow,' he says, ' is not made live Cf. 1 cor. 
unless it die.' The ' animal bodv ' must die that it mav be x 
raised ' a spiritual body.' 

Hence it is evident that, when he affirms that ' through Not physi- 
sin death entered into the world,' it is not the mere dissolu- tkmbutits 
tion of the physical organism that he has in view. This is distressing 

r J ° concomi- 

a necessary, and not merely a necessary but a beneficent tants. 
process ; and by ' death ' he means not the process but its 
distressing concomitants. And these have resulted from 
sin ; they are the curse which it has entailed. ' This death,' 
says William Ames, that profound and saintly theologian of 
Puritan England, 1 'the punishment inflicted on man for Gen. ii. 17; 
sin, is the miserable privation of life. It is not privation of 
life simple and bare but conjoined with subjection to misery ; 
and therefore it is not the annihilation of the sinner, because, 
were the subject of the misery done away, the misery itself 
would be done away.' Hence the Apostle's affirmation that 
' through sin death entered into the world ' does not mean 
that, if man had never sinned, he would have continued for 
ever on the earth — an event neither possible nor desirable, 
since space would quickly have failed on this little planet 
for the accumulating generations, nor is this man's perfect 
condition but merely a stage in the progress toward his goal. 
It means rather that, had man never sinned, his dissolution 
would have been, according to the Creator's design, a natural 
and easy transition, without grief or apprehension, from the 
lower condition to the higher, like the passage from childhood 
to manhood or the bursting of the bud into the flower. 

That this is indeed the Christian conception is attested De?.th 
by the teaching of our Lord. He never spoke of His people's according 

1 Theol. Med. I. xii. 28, 29, 32. 



4o6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



to our 
Lord 
Cf. 2 Tim. 
i, 10. 

Cf. Jo. xi. 
11-13. 

The 

Christian 
concep- 
tion. 



' death.' For them there is no ' miserable privation of life.' 
He has ' undone ' this : yet the natural process of dissolution 
remains, and they must sustain it in order that they may 
attain the full and perfect life. And this transition He 
always designated ' falling asleep.' l 

Thus, in Christian phraseology, ' death ' never signifies 
the mere dissolution of the physical organism, but the gloom 
and terror wherewith sin has invested that natural, necessary, 
and truly beneficent process. It is in this sense that the 
Apostle employs the term when he affirms that ' through sin 
death entered into the world ' ; and when he says that ' our 
Saviour Christ Jesus has undone death,' he means that the 
natural process has, in the believer's thought, been divested 
of its alien associations and reconstituted what it was in the 
Creator's purpose — the perfecting and consummation of life. 
The process remains, but the terror is gone. 

In truth our Lord's dealing with death is but an instance 
of His redemptive ministry, His undoing of the work of sin. 
Sin creates nothing ; it only mars God's creation. Thus, 
the Scriptures represent work no less than death as a curse 
which sin has entailed on the race. And Christ removes 
the curse, not by absolving us from work, but by restoring 
its primal and proper idea. 

' After Adam work was curse : 
The natural creature labours, sweats, and frets. 
But, after Christ, work turns to privilege ; 
And henceforth one with our humanity, 
The Six-day Worker, working still in us, 
Has called us freely to work on with Him 
In high companionship/ 2 

And it is precisely thus that He has removed the curse of 

dissolution also — not by cancelling the necessity but by 

Cf. 1 Cor. revealing its true significance, its proper glory. He has 

HrbVii §i yen believers a new idea of it, and thus He has robbed it 

15- of its sting. 

The im- Here, then, is the principle of redemption : ' as through 
o^ChHsfs one nian sin entered into the world, and through sin death, 
righteous- so through one man righteousness entered into the world, 



The re- 
demption 
of rWth. 



Cf. Gen. 
Hi. 19. 



* Cf. p. 163. 



9 E. B. Browning, Aurora Leigh, viii. 



THE THIRD MISSION 407 

and through righteousness life.' The work of Christ is an 
undoing of the work of Adam ; but, the Apostle proceeds, 
it is incomparably grander. Grace is matched against the 
Curse, but it is no equal conflict. Look at the quality of 
the antagonists : on the one side, the trespass of Adam and, 
on the other, the grace of God in Christ, so bountiful and 
overflowing. And look again at the issues : on the one side, 
humanity doomed for a single trespass and, on the other, 
humanity acquitted of a multitude of trespasses for the 
righteousness of one man. And here is the attestation of 
the doctrine of Justification by Faith. Salvation is a gracious 
gift, a magnificent bounty 01 God. It is not earned by the 
works of the Law ; it is received by faith in Christ. The 
Law cannot save. Its function is not justification but con- 
demnation. ' Where there is no Law, neither is there trans- 
gression ' ; and the Law's office was not to heal the malady 
but to reveal it, to show men their sinfulness and lead them 
to the Saviour. 

15 Yet the trespass and the gift of grace did not correspond. For 
if by the trespass of the one the race x died, much more the grace 
of God and the bounteousness 2 in grace — the grace of the one 

16 man, Jesus Christ — overflowed to the race. Neither did the 
result of the one's sinning and the bounty correspond. For 
the doom on the score of one trespass issued in a verdict of 
guilt ; while the gift of grace on the score of many trespasses 

17 issued in a verdict of righteousness. 3 For if by the trespass of 

1 oi iroWoly not 'many' (A.V.), but 'the many,' i.e., not merely the majority, 
but the mass of mankind, the race as distinguished from 6 els. ' By this accurate 
version some hurtful mistakes about partial redemption and absolute reprobation 
had been happily prevented. Our English readers had then seen what several of 
the Fathers saw and testified, that ol ttoWoL the many, in an antithesis to the one, 
are equivalent to irdvres all in ver. 12 and comprehend the whole multitude, the 
entire species of mankind, exclusive only of the one' (Bentley, Works, III. 
p. 244). 

* Scoped, in the Papyri the Emperor's largesse to his soldiers (cf. Moulton and 
Milligan, Vocab.) ; in N. T. God's regal munificence, the bounteousness of His 
grace (cf. Ac. ii. 38 ; Heb. vi. 4). SAp-qua (ver. 16) is His bounty, His x^-P^f 1 *- 

8 SiKaLufia, (1) 'a righteous ordinance' (cf. i. 32, ii. 26, viii. 4J Lk. i. 6); 

(2) 'a righteous act,' 'an achievement of righteousness' (cf. Rev. xv. 4, xix. 8) ; 

(3) 'a verdict of acquittal,' 3*Kcuw<m (ver. 18 ; cf. iv. 25) being the pronouncing 
of the verdict. Here 'a verdict of acquittal,' since els StKaLwfxa stands in antithesis 
to els Kard.Kpi.pia ('a verdict of guilt'). In ver. 18, where the antithesis is 
St ifos irapairrdpiaTOs, 81 4v6t SiKattipiaToi, the meaning is 'an achievement of 
righteousness.' 



4o8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the one death reigned through the one, much more will those 
who receive the flood of grace and of the bounteousness of 
righteousness, reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. 

18 So then, 1 as one trespass resulted for mankind in a verdict 
of guilt, so also one achievement of righteousness resulted for 
mankind in a life-giving pronouncement of them righteous. 

19 For, as through the disobedience of the one man the race was 
constituted sinful, so also through the obedience of the one 

20 the race will be constituted righteous. And as for the Law, it 
stole in that trespass might multiply ; but where sin multi- 

21 plied, grace overflowed the more, that, as sin reigned in death, 
so also grace might reign through righteousness to life eternal 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. 



II 

APOLOGETIC (vi-xi) 

Problems The Apostle has demonstrated his doctrine of Justification 
by C the te by Faith, but his task is still incomplete. For the doctrine 
Tustific e ° f was °P en *° grave perversion and presented a serious stum- 
tion by bling-block, especialfy to Jewish minds ; and he now proceeds 

to vindicate it from misconstruction and solve the problems 

which it involved. 



Faith" 



(1) Em- 
bolden- 
ment to 
persist in 
sin. 



I. The Ethical Problem (vi) 

First there was an ethical problem, and this was defined 
by two Jewish objections to the doctrine of Justification by 
Faith. One was a specious sophistry which would doubtless 
commend itself all too readilv to the laxer sort of believers 
— that, since salvation is a gift of grace, not won by works 
but bestowed on faith, it was actually a pious duty to ' persist 
in sin ' that the grace of God might be the more displayed. 
' Are we/ asks the Apostle, ' to " persist in sin that grace 
may multiply " ? ' and he first answers with his indignant 
repudiation ' Away with the idea ! ' and then meets the 
suggestion with a profound argument. 

1 Resuming the interrupted protasis of ver. 12. The sentence should have 
run : ' As through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, so 
through one man righteousness entered into the world, and through righteousness 
life.' Ver. 18 is elliptical. Supply from ver. 16 ro Kpifxa. (iytvero), rb xapt<r/*o 
[iyivero). 



THE THIRD MISSION 409 

vi. 1 What, then, shall we say ? Are we to ' persist in sin 
2 that grace may multiply ' ? Away with the idea ! We 
who died to sin — how shall we any more live in it ? 

The argument rests upon the mystic union between Christ The 
and believers. Faith unites us with Him. We are one with anTwerV 
Him in His Death, His Burial, His Resurrection, and His Life ; Cystic 

' ' ' ' Union with 

and this mystic experience is symbolised by the Sacrament Christ. 
of Baptism according to the mode of Immersion. 1 Consider, 
says the Apostle, what your Baptism into Christ signified. 
Your plunging in His name beneath the water symbolised 
your burial with Him, and your re-emergence your resurrec- 
tion with Him. You died with Him, you were buried with 
Him, you were raised with Him, and henceforth you live 
with Him. His death was crucifixion, and crucifixion was 
a servile supplicium. When you died with Him, you died a 
slave's death. You were sin's slave ; and now you are 
acquitted from its thraldom, since ' the end of life cancels 
all bands.' 

This is the mystic union between Christ and the believer ; a christian 
and, as it is stated here in theological terms, it wears an arti- ^^ QU(ince - 
ricial look. What is the vital nexus which unites the be- 
liever to Christ and welds him to Christ as the graft is 
welded to the tree ? The answer transcends theology. It 
is furnished by Christian experience, and the Apostle stated 
it when he wrote to the Corinthians : ' The love of Christ 2 Cor. v. 
has us in its grasp, and this is our judgment : One died on I4, I5 ' 
behalf of all, consequently all died ; and He died on behalf of 
all that those who live should no longer live for themselves, 
but for Him who on their behalf died and was raised.' This 
is not theology : it is experience ; and it is a blessed reality 
for every true believer whom the love of Christ has mastered 
and inspired with a responsive devotion. The Apostle's 
readers knew the glorious mystery. They confessed it in 
their hymns of praise ; and it has been the experience of 
myriads of souls in succeeding generations. 

' For ah ! the Master is so fair, 

His smile so sweet to banished men, 
That they who meet it unaware 
Can never rest on Earth again. 

1 Cf. Append. VI. 



thought. 



410 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

* And they who see Him risen afar 

At God's right hand to welcome them, 
Forgetful stand of home and land, 
Desiring fair Jerusalem/ l 

\ stoic The true life, taught the Stoic philosophy, was ' life accord- 

ing to Nature/ and the secret of attaining it lay in accounting 
oneself dead to the past. ' Consider that you have died/ 
says Marcus Aurelius, 2 v and at this point ended your exist- 
ence ; and henceforth live according to Nature.' The true 
life, teaches the Apostle, is ' life in Christ ' ; and his precept is : 
1 Reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in 
Christ Jesus.' You are absolved, he argues, from the bond- 
age of sin : be its slaves no longer. God is now your King, 
and it is His battles that you must henceforth fight. It is 
a debt of honour. You owe it to grace. It were a shame 
to be irresponsive to the Love of Christ. Sin must not, it 
will not, be your lord. 

3 Are you ignoring the fact that all of us who were baptised 

4 into Christ Jesus, were baptised into His death ? With 
Him, then, we were buried through our baptism into His 
death, that, as Christ was raised from the dead through 
the glory of the Father, so we also may comport our- 

5 selves in a new order of life. For if we have been vitally 
welded with Him 3 by the similitude of His death, then so 

6 shall we be by that also of His resurrection ; recognising 
this— -that our old self was crucified with Him, that sin's 
thrall 4 might be invalidated, so that we should no more be 

7 slaves to sin. For one who has died is acquitted from sin. 5 

8 And ' if we died with Christ,' our faith is that ' we shall also 

9 live with Him ' ; since we know that Christ 

' Once raised from the dead, dies no more ; 
Death is His lord no more. 

1 The Desire to Depart in Ezekiel and Other Poems by B. M. 
' vii. 56. 

* <ri[x<pvroi, 'grown together with Him,' like a graft with the tree. Cf. Shak. 
2 King Henry IV, II. ii. 67 : 'so much engrafted to Falstaff.' 

* rb <rw/xa rrjs a/xaprlas, not 'the body of sin,' 'the sinful body,' but 'the slave 
of sin.' cQ/xa in the sense of 'slave' is frequent in Biblical and Common Greek. 
Cf. Gen. xxxiv. 29 ; Rev. xviii. 13. 

* deducalurat dvb tt}s a/xaprias, a legal maxim. In old Scottish phrase a 
criminal was 'justified' when he was hanged : he had 'tholed assize,' paid the 
penalty and satisfied justice ; and the law no longer had a hold on him. Cf. 
Shale Temp. in. ii. 140 : ' He that dies pays all debts.' 






THE THIRD MISSION 411 

xo For the death He died, 

He died to sin once for all 5 
And the life He lives, 
He lives to God/ x 

11 So with you also : reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but 
alive to God in Christ Jesus. 

12 Let not sin, then, reign in your mortal body, that you 

13 should obey its lusts. And never present your members to 
sin as weapons of unrighteousness. No, present yourselves 
to God as men once dead and now alive, and your members 

14 as weapons of righteousness to God. Sin must not be your 
lord ; 2 for you are not under Law but under Grace. 

This leads the Apostle to the second perversion of his (a) The 
doctrine. It was the charge of antinomianism which the anSn£° f 
Judaists had so often urged, and which derived a show of mianism - 
reason from the frequent laxity of his Gentile converts. 3 
Since, it was alleged, we are justified by Faith, we are done 
with Law and absolved from moral restraint. Solicitude 
for good works is mere legalism. The believer is above Law. 
The spirit is his domain, and the passions of the flesh belong 
for him to the category of ' things indifferent.' He is at 
liberty to sin as he pleases. 

15 ' What then ? Are we to sin because we are not under 
Law but under Grace ? ' 

The Apostle's answer is that lawlessness is not liberty ; Lawless- 
and the libertines, who fancied that their emancipation from SSStybut 
the Law absolved them from moral obligation, simply ex- a worse 
changed their old bondage for another and a still worse 
bondage. Some master we must always have. Whatever 
we obey is our master, and the choice lies between three 
masters — the Law, Sin, and Righteousness. The service of 
the Law was indeed, as it had proved in the experience of 
the Jews, an intolerable bondage ; but the service of Sin is 
far more grievous, and so the Gentiles had found it. It 
brings shame and issues in death. The service of Righteous- 
ness is the true emancipation. God's slaves are the only free 

1 Snatches of Christian hymns. Cf. 2 Tim. ii. u. 

9 a/j.apTla y&p vfiQv oti Kvpie6<rec t not a promise but an expectation, a confident 
challenge. Noblesse oblige. Cf. Mt. v. 48 : %<re<r$e oVu ifitis riXtioi. 
9 Cf. p. 161. 



412 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

men. Take Him, says the Apostle, for your Master, and 
serve Him henceforth as devotedly as you have served Sin. 
It is told of an Egyptian monk, named Pambos, that he 
once visited Alexandria on the invitation of the Bishop 
Athanasius and, encountering an actress in the city, he burst 
into tears. His companions inquired what ailed him. ' Two 
things/ he answered : ' the creature's perdition, and the 
thought that my zeal to please God is less than hers to please 
base men/ x And this is the Apostle's argument : ' As 
you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and 
to lawlessness waxing ever worse, so now present your 
members as slaves to Righteousness issuing in increase of 
holiness/ God's is the best, the most profitable service. 
Sin is a cruel tyrant, and its soldiers' pay is death — the in- 
glorious death of ignominious defeat ; but God's kingly 
largesse, His precious donative, is life eternal — the victor's 
unfading crown. 

16 Away with the idea ! Do you not know that whatever 
you present yourselves to as slaves to obey it, you are slaves 
of what you obey, whether sin issuing in death or obedience 

17 issuing in righteousness ? And thanks to God that, though 
you were once slaves of sin, you have heartily obeyed the 

18 standard of teaching to which you were given over. 2 Set 

19 free from Sin, you were enslaved to Righteousness. (I am 
speaking after the fashion men use in consideration of your 
human weakness. 3 ) As you presented your members as 
slaves to uncleanness and to lawlessness waxing ever worse, 
so now present your members as slaves to Righteousness 

1 Socr. Eccl. Hist. iv. 23. 

* riiro%, either (1) a type or image of something yet future (cf. v. 14) or, more 
commonly, (2) a pattern or exemplar for imitation or avoidance (cf. 1 Cor. x. 6 ; 
Phil. iii. 17; 1 Th. i. 7; 2 Th. iii. 9; Tit. ii. 7; Heb. viii. 5; 1 Pet. v. 3). 
Here the latter, twos 5t5a%?}s does not mean the distinctively Paul doctrine. It is 
an anachronism to conceive of distinct types of Christian teaching at that period. 
In those days when the N. T. was only in the making, there was no regula fidei 
morumque, no authoritative rule of Christian faith and conduct ; and it appears 
that, to supply the lack, concise statements, like Luke's manual (cf . pp. 594 f . ), were 
formulated (cf. 2 Tim. i. 13 ; 2 Jo. 9; Jud. 3 ; Polyerates in Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 
24 : 6 Kavuu T??s iriaTeus), less theological than religious and ethical. Eph. iv. 
20-24 is evidently a reference to such a 'rule of faith.' Cf. Hatch, Influence 
of Gk. Ideas, p. 314; Hort, Rom. and Eph., p. ^2. The rule of faith was not 
'delivered to the believers' ; they were 'delivered to it,' to be shaped by it like 
metal in a mould. 

' An apology for the expression ' enslavement to righteousness.' 



Ra- 
tion of the 
aw. 



THE THIRD MISSION 413 

20 issuing in increase of holiness. For while you were slaves of 

21 Sin, you were free as regards Righteousness. What, then, 
was the fruit that you had in those days ? Things of which 
you are now ashamed ; 1 for the end of those things is death. 

22 But now that you are set free from Sin and enslaved to God, 
the fruit you have makes for increase of holiness, and the end 

23 is life eternal. For Sin's pay is death, but God's donative is 
life eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord. 2 

2. The Position of the Law (vii, viii) 

And now the Apostle addresses himself to a problem of Abro 
poignant interest to every Jewish heart — the question of the J 1 
position of the ancient Law in the new order of Grace 
According to the doctrine of Justification by Faith the Law 
was abrogated. The very idea was sacrilege in the eyes of 
devout Jews, and he seeks to demonstrate its reasonableness 
and reconcile them to the inevitable denouement. Following 
up occasional suggestions which he has already dropped, he 
defines the proper office of the Law and displays its essential 
and necessary insufficiency as an instrument of salvation. 

Its abrogation was inevitable. A law by its very nature Analogy of 
is necessarily temporary, since it is designed for the regula- maniage. 
tion of a particular situation and its obligation ceases when 
the situation changes. This was plain to the Apostle's 
readers, living as they did under the rule of Imperial Rome 
and enjoying her just and wise administration ; and he 
quotes an apposite instance. The law of marriage imposes 
on a wife the obligation of fidelity ; but the obligation is not 
interminable. She is bound to her husband as long as he 
lives ; but with his death her obligation ceases and she is at 
liberty to contract another marriage. And here is a parable. 
The believer was formerly wedded to Sin or the Old Self ; 
and it was a grievous union. It was the Law that made it 
hard by its stern prohibition of sinful passions. But now 

1 Punctuating efxere t6t€ ; Otherwise rdre itf oh vvv €ira.Lax^> veo '^ e '■> The 
sentence is then elliptical : ' What fruit had you then of those things whereof 
{iKeivwv e<p f ofr) you are now ashamed? [None] ; for the end, etc' 

s A military metaphor (cf. vers. 13, 14). 6\f/J}Via, the soldier's 'pay' {stipendia), 
properly the small sum which he received to purchase relish (dipou) for eating with 
his rations (cnro/u^r/o^a). x^^T* * the donativum in recognition of good service. 
' Solent Reges egregiis militibus prseter stipendium dare coronas, laureas, honores ' 
(Grot.). 



4 i4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



a. vi 6. 



Evidence 
of the 
Apostle's 
personal 
experi- 
ence. 



the Old Self has been ' crucified with Christ ' ; it is dead, 
and the believer is absolved from the galling obligation and 
has entered into a new and blessed union. The analogy 
seems somewhat fanciful, and indeed it is playfully pro- 
pounded ; yet the principle which it illustrates is real and 
conclusive. Law is provisional and temporary ; and when 
a new order emerges, the obligations of the old order cease. 
And so it happened with the Jewish Law. Christ has in- 
stituted a new order, and in Him we are no longer under Law 
but under Grace. 

vii. i Are you ignoring the fact, brothers — I am talking to men 
who know what law is — that the law lords it over the person 

2 during his life-time ? The woman who is under a husband 
is bound by the law to the living husband ; but if the 
husband die, the law which held her to him is invalidated. 

3 So then, during the husband's life, she will be termed an 
adulteress if she pass to a second husband ; but if the 
husband die, she is free from the law, so that she is not 

4 an adulteress by passing to a second husband. And so, 
my brothers, you also were put to death as regards the 
Law through the body of Christ, that you might pass to a 
second — Him who was raised from the dead in order that 

5 we may bear fruit for God. For, while we were in the flesh, 
the sinful passions provoked by the Law were ever being 
set in operation in our members to bear fruit for death ; 

6 but, as the case stands, the law which bound us was 
invalidated by our dying to what held us fast, so that we 
are slaves in the new order of the Spirit and not the old 
order of a written code. 

Here arises an objection—the petulant objection of a Jew 
who perceives the principle yet is loath to acknowledge it : 
Is the Law synonymous with Sin ? The Apostle repudiates 
the suggestion, and proceeds to define the difference between 
the Law and Sin and their mutual relation. His argument 
is a personal testimony. He narrates his spiritual auto- 
biography, and shows how, beginning as a Pharisee, he had 
sought righteousness by the Works of the Law and had been 
driven by painful experience to the blessed refuge of Faith 
in Christ. 1 

1 Cf. pp. 32 f. The passage is plainly autobiographical. The Apostle speaks 
in his own name and not merely as a representative either of the Jews (Euth. Zig.) 



or of the human race (Theophyl.). 
universal experience. 



It is a personal confession exemplifying the 



THE THIRD MISSION 415 



His youth had been serene, un vexed by the consciousness (1) His 

awa 1 
ing. 



of alienation from God ; but one unforgotten day his peace a 



had been broken. Lust had mastered him, and immediately 
the flood-gates were opened. Conscience gripped him. The 
Law intervened, and its commandment ' Thou shalt not lust ' 
rang in his ears, and he recognised himself a sinner. It was 
the Law that brought him the discovery ; and this indeed 
is the Law's proper function. ' Through law is full recogni- m. 20; iv 
tion of sin,' and ' where there is no law, neither is there I5i v ' I3 ' 
transgression ' ; for ' sin is not taken into the reckoning when 
there is no law.' Had there been no law, the Apostle's sin 
would have been dead ; but conscience quickened it, and he 
found himself in the Law's deadly grasp. The Law was not 
Sin ; it was the discoverer of Sin. It was holy, and its 
prohibition of lust was holy and righteous and good. It had 
been instituted as a deterrent for the gracious purpose of 
preventing sin, and had he obeyed it, it would have been his 
friend ; but when it was violated, it became his remorseless 
enemy. 

7 What, then, shall we say ? Is the Law sin ? Away with 

the idea ! No, I had never recognised sin save through law. 

For I had never known lust had not the Law kept saying 
8 ' Thou shalt not lust.' And sin got an outlet * through the 

commandment to work out in me every sort of lust ; for 
9 apart from law sin is dead. I was alive apart from law once ; 

but when the commandment came, sin sprang into life, while 

10 as for me, I died ; and the commandment which aimed at 

1 1 life — I found it resulted in death. For sin got an outlet 
through the commandment to ' deceive ' me and through it Cf. Gen. 

12 to slay me. And so the Law is holy, and the commandment *"• l8 - 

13 is holy and righteous and good. Did what is good, then, 
prove death to me ? Away with the idea ! No, but sin did, 
that it might be shown as sin, by working out death for me 
through what is good, that sin might come out in its tran- 
scendent sinfulness through the commandment. 

From that day his career of Pharisaic zeal was a struggle (2) His 
against sin, a feverish effort to rehabilitate himself with the con lct 
Law and avert its condemnation by obedience to its com- 
mandments. But the struggle always issued in defeat ; his 
efforts proved always unavailing. Sin was too strong for 

1 &(popfir}i> t cf. p. 215. 



4i6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

him. It held him in thraldom, thwarting each resolution 
and compelling him to do the evil which he hated. In the 
language of the Latin poet, 1 ' if he could, he would have been 
saner ; but a strange force dragged him unwillingly. Lust 
prompted one thing, reason another. He saw the better 
things, and approved them ; he followed the worse.' And 
here he made a second discovery. There was within him a 
dual personality — a higher self and a lower, his reason and 
his flesh, and these were in conflict. His reason would fain 
obey the Law of God, but his flesh obeyed the law of Sin. 
Here he found a measure of comfort, since his reason was his 
true self ; yet his plight remained pitiful. The struggle 
seemed hopeless, and he saw no prospect of emancipation. 
' Wretched man that I am ! ' was his lament, ' who will 
rescue me from the bod} 7 laden with this death ? ' 

14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am a creature 

15 of flesh, 2 sold into sin's thraldom. What I am working out I 
do not recognise ; for it is not what I will that I practise ; no, 

16 what I hate, it is this that I do. But, if it be what I will not 

17 that I do, I admit the beauty of the Law ; and, as the case 
stands, it is no longer I that am working out the thing but the 

18 sin which has its dwelling in me. For I know that there 
dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, no good. It lies within my 
reach to will what is beautiful, but to work it out does not ; 

19 for it is not the good which I will that I do, but the evil which 
20 1 will not, it is this that I practise. But if it be what I will 

not that I do, it is no longer I that am working out the thing ; 

21 no, it is the sin which dwells in me. I find therefore the 
law : when I will to do what is beautiful, it is what is evil 

22 that lies within my reach. For my delight is with the Law of 

23 God, so far as my inmost self is concerned ; but I perceive a 
different law in my members warring against the law of my 
reason and taking me captive under the law of sin, the law 

24 which is in my members. Wretched man that I am ! who will 
rescue me from the body laden with this death ? 3 

1 Ovid, Met. vn. 18-21. 

8 (rdpKivos, 'carneous,' 'made of flesh' (cf. p. 249). He was not aapKiKos, 
'carnal,' else there would have been no spiritual conflict. He was a spiritual 
being inhabiting flesh. 

3 ex toD <Tc6,uaros rod Bo.v6.tqv tovtov, the body which is the seat of sin (cf. vi. 6), 
which in turn works out death (cf. ver. 13). If it were permissible to construe 
tovtov with <ribfj.a.Tos, 'this body of death,' i.e., 'this dead body' (Erasm., Calv.), 
the idea would be that the Apostle regarded himself as a living man bound to a 
corpse, like the victims of the tyrant Mezentius (cf. Verg. ALn. vin. 485-8). 



THE THIRD MISSION 417 

Brought thus low he made a final discovery. He found in (3) Pence 
Christ the rescue of which he had despaired. The conflict 1] 
continued, but victory was assured. Deliverance was in 
sight. 

25 Thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord ! So, then, 
I my own self with the reason am a slave to the Law of God 
but with the flesh a slave to the law of Sin. 

And now he proceeds to unfold the happy situation. He contro- 
pictures a controversy before the Law between himself and t^eVthe 
Sin. The Law was his friend, and it would fain have pro- si[iner a:,d 

,..,. r -i-i 1 • sin he' ore 

nounced a verdict in his favour ; but its benevolent intent the Law. 
was frustrated : ' it was weak through the flesh.' There was 
a moral antinomy in his nature. His reason approved the 
Law of God, but his flesh was enslaved to the law of Sin, and 
the flesh had proved too strong for the reason. He had 
obeyed its unholy dictates, and thus there was nothing for 
it but that the holy Law should pronounce a verdict against 
him. It would fain have acquitted him, but it could not : 
' it was weak through the flesh/ and it had to condemn him. 
Here redemption interposed. Christ had assumed frail, 
sin-laden humanity, and He had conquered the allurements 
of the flesh. He had resisted the law of Sin and obeyed the 
Law of God. And thus what the Law could not do in our 
case it was able to do in His : it found Him righteous, and 
' condemned Sin in the flesh ' — the Sin which had invaded 
humanity and which the Incarnate Saviour had resisted. 

viii. 1 So, as the case stands, there is no condemnation for those 

2 who are in Christ Jesus ; for the law of the Spirit of life 
freed you in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 

3 For what the Law could not do inasmuch as it was weak 
through the flesh, God by sending His own Son in the 
similitude of sinful flesh * and to deal with sin condemned 

4 sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the Law 
might be fulfilled in us who follow not the ways of the flesh 
but those of the spirit. 

1 Cf. Phil. ii. 7; Heb. ii. 17. Our Lord assumed not 'sinful flesh' but a 
human body like Adam's at his creation — ' a true body ' yet different from the 
bodies of the children of men inasmuch as it was untainted by Original Sin. 
Cf. The Days of His Flesh, Append. I. 

2 D 



418 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Abiding It was thus that the Apostle found by faith in Christ the 
between 7 peace which he had vainly sought by the works of the Law. 
^ e . s r l ? t and The antinomy remained, but the condemnation was gone. 
And this happy issue resulted from his mystic union with 
Christ. The Son of God had by His Incarnation been identi- 
fied with humanity, and by conquering its solicitations had 
mastered the sin inherent in our flesh. He had died and had 
been raised and glorified ; and the Apostle, united with Him 
by faith, had died with Him, had been raised with Him, and 
lived with Him. It was indeed true that his old self, though 
crucified, still lived, and the conflict between the Law of God 
and the law of sin still persisted and would persist while 
he tenanted the sin-laden body ; but his union with Christ 
had effected a momentous and blessed difference. His life 
in Christ was his true life, and his peace lay in resolutely 
maintaining it. 

5 For those who take the ways of the flesh espouse the cause 
of the flesh ; while those who take the spirit s ways espouse 

6 the spirit's cause. 1 The espousal of the cause of the flesh is 
death ; while the espousal of the spirit's cause is life and 

7 peace because the espousal of the cause of the flesh is enmity 
against God, for it is not subjected to the Law of God, indeed 

8 it cannot be ; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 

Life in the The Apostle's argument here is illumined by recollection 
uEwith °f ms conception of the two hostile domains, the two antagon- 
Ghristand istic forces in human nature — the flesh and the spirit. 3 

surrender _„„",. .,i-ii >i-ii 

to His The flesh is not simply the body — man s physical nature, 
pint * that side of his complex being which relates him to the animal 
creation. It is the body enslaved and corrupted by sin. It 
is the domain where the law of sin prevails. The spirit, on 
the other hand, is that side of our nature which is akin to 
God. It is the domain dominated by the Spirit of God. 
And thus our destiny depends on our relation to these two 
domains. The flesh is mortal, and if we live in it and obey 

1 4>poveiv ra rrjs ffapxos, 'take the side of the flesh,' 'support its cause.' Cf. 
The Days of His Flesh, p. 268. Socr. Eccl. Hist. 1. 24, where rA 2<x£e\\/ot> 
tf>povetv is synonymous with ZafieWLfew. It is a political phrase, and the id°a is 
continued by ?x&P a et '* O^ and Oe<£ apiacu (vers. 7, 8). aptantiv occurs in 
Inscriptions commemorating services to the state (cf. Moulton and Milhgan, 
Voead.). 8 Cf. p. 214. 



THE THIRD MISSION 419 

the law of sin, our destiny is death. If, on the contrary, we 
live in the spirit and surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit's 
dominion, then our destiny is life. And in this destiny our 
mortal bodies will participate ; for they will be delivered from 
the debasing tyranny of sin and share the Resurrection of 
Christ. The flesh will be redeemed from corruption and 
raised incorruptible, a body of glory. 

But you are not in the flesh ; no, you are in the spirit, if 
indeed God's Spirit is dwelling in you. If one has not Christ's 

10 Spirit, this man is not His. And if Christ be in you, then, 
while the body is dead by reason of sin, the spirit is life by 

11 reason of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised 
Jesus from the dead is dwelling in you, He who raised Christ 
Jesus from the dead will make even your mortal bodies live 
through His Spirit who has His dwelling in you. 

Hence the secret lies in eschewing the domain of the flesh a debt of 
and resolutely living in the domain of the spirit ; and this 
the Apostle designates * a debt ' — a debt of honour, a sacred 
obligation. He is thinking here of the mystic union between 
the believer and Christ and is recalling his previous argument : 
' We who died to sin — how 7 shall we any more live in it ? vi. 2, «. 
Reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in 
Christ Jesus.' 

12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh that we 

13 should live in accordance with the flesh. For if you are living 
in accordance with the flesh, you will soon die ; but if by the 
spirit you are putting the body's practices to death, you will 
live. 

The antinomy indeed persists and the conflict continues ; a threefold 
but it is no longer a hopeless conflict, for our union with ^em? 06 " 
Christ and our surrender to the dominion of His Spirit 
have brought us magnificent reinforcements. And these the 
Apostle proceeds to display. 

The first is the restoration of our divine sonship. Son- (1) The 
ship is our primal birthright, and even while we are following of S our a 10n 
the ways of the flesh, we are still God's sons, though, as our ^°*. 
Lord has it, lost sons, sons who have wandered from the 
Father's House, forgotten Him, and forfeited their heritage. 1 

1 Cf. The Atonement in the Light of History and the Modern Spirit ', pp. 143 ff. 



4 2o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

When we forsake the ways of the flesh and follow the Spirit's 
ways, then our faces are turned homeward and we cry 'Abba, 
our Father ! ' Perhaps there is a reference here to that 
jer. in. 19. prophetic word of the Lord : ' How shall I put thee among 
the children, and give thee a pleasant land, the goodliest 
heritage of the nations ? And I said, Ye shall call Me, My 
Father ; and shall not turn away from following Me.' When 
our hearts turn homeward and we yearn for our Father, that 
is the awakening within us of the spirit of sonship, but we 
are not yet reinstated in our heritage, 

' not inheritors as yet 
Of all our own right royal things/ 

Sonship is ours in possession, but the heritage is ours only in 
prospect. It will be ours in possession when we get home, 
and meanwhile we must travel the painful road in eager 
expectation. Christ won His glory by suffering, and we 
must share His suffering if we would share His glory. 

14 For they who are led by God's Spirit, these are all God's 

15 sons. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to be again 
in fear ; no, you received a spirit of restored sonship in which 

16 we cry 'Abba, our Father!' 1 The Spirit Himself testifies 

17 with our spirit that we are God's children. And if we are 
children, we are also heirs — God's heirs and Christ's fellow- 
heirs, if indeed we are His fellows in suffering that we may be 
made also His fellows in glory. 

(2) The And this golden hope is the second reinforcement which 

await^us Ch surrender to the Spirit's dominion brings. Our present 
sufferings dwindle into insignificance in view of the glory 
which awaits us. They are our portion in the universal 
curse, that tide of woe which streamed from Adam's sin and 
has flooded all nature, animate and inanimate, ' turning to 
dross the gold of nature's dower.' Our Lord endured it 
Gai. iii. 13. in His vicarious anguish when He ' submitted Himself to 
cursing on our behalf,' and He is calling us to take up the 
cross and follow Him, His fellow-workers in the universal 
redemption. 

18 I reckon that the sufferings of the present crisis are not 
worth mentioning in view of the glory which will soon be 

* Cf. p. 209. 



THE THIRD MISSION 421 

19 revealed as our portion. For the creation, eagerly intent, is 

ao awaiting the revelation of the sons of God. The creation was 

subjected to futility, 1 not of its own choice but because of 

21 him who subjected it ; 2 yet was there a hope to sustain it, 
forasmuch as the creation itself also will be freed from en- 
slavement to corruption and attain the freedom belonging to 

22 the glory of the children of God. 3 For we know that all 
the creation has been groaning and travailing with mankind 4 

23 to this day. And, more than that, ourselves also, though we 
have the first-fruits of the Spirit 5 — we ourselves also are inly 
groaning while we await our restoration to sonship — the 

24 redemption of our body. It is by the hope that we were 
saved ; but when a hope is seen, it is not a hope ; for a thing 

25 which one sees, why is he hoping for it ? But if it be for a 
thing which we do not see that we are hoping, we enduringly 
await it. 

And a third reinforcement is the Spirit's help. We are (3) The 
not alone on the painful road : ' the Spirit lends a helping h ^ 1 s 
hand to our weakness/ It is a homely and kindly word that 
the Apostle employs here. It occurs in only one other pas- 
sage in the New Testament — the Evangelist Luke's story of 
the supper at Bethany, where it is told how Martha, ' dis- 
tracted about much service,' appealed to the Master to bid 
Mary 'lend her a helping hand.' It is a long compound — the Lk. x. 40, 
simple verb, meaning ' to lay hold of,' and two prepositions, 
one signifying ' along with ' and the other ' over against,' 
' at the opposite side/ And thus the idea is that you are 

1 Cf. Ps. xxxix. 5 : ra (nj/nravTa /iarcuir^s, was dvdpcairos £u>v. 

2 That is, Adam, whose sin cursed not only his posterity but the whole creation, 
even inanimate nature (cf. Gen. iii. 17), which consequently 'groans and travails 
with sinful man' (cf. ver. 22). So Chrys. Not God (Orig., Ambrstr., and most 
moderns). It was sin, not God, that inflicted the curse. Adam by his sin 
subjected the creation to futility ; God redeems it by subjecting it to Christ 
(cf. 1 Cor, xv. 27, 28). 

* ^t' i\irl8i, ' in reliance on hope,' with vireT&yr). On the view that 5i<x rbv 
inrori^avra refers to God, iw' iXiridt may be construed either with virerdyrj or with 
virordi-avra. In the latter case it is necessary to read, not Sioti, 'because' 
(KD*FG), but fat, 'that' (ABCD C EKLP)— ' with hope that.' 

4 The present sufferings are ' the birth-pangs ' of a new creation, a better world 
(cf. Mt. xxiv. 8 = Mk. xiii. 8 : apxv tiSLvtav) ; and all nature, cursed by man's sin, 
shares his anguish. On the view that Sid rbv v-rrord^avra (ver. 20) refers to God, 
<rvv in avverevdfei and vvvwSLvei must be regarded as a mere strengthening of the 
simple verbs or as introducing the idea of a chorus of groaning in Nature. On 
this use of the pres. cf. Jo. xiv. 9 : roisovrov xpovov /ie0' vpubv eifu j 

* Cf. p. 350. 



422 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

struggling to lift a burden beyond your strength, and a 
friend comes to your aid. He lays hold of it, and then 
betwixt you — you on this side and he on that — it is lifted 
easily. 

This is the office of the Holy Spirit. He does not relieve 
us of our burdens : He ' lends us a helping hand/ And the 
Apostle adduces a particular case — the task of prayer. We 
are ignorant and bewildered. Our prayers are only con- 
fused cries, ' inarticulate groanings ' ; but the Spirit pours 
meaning into them ; He pleads for us ; and, interpreted by 
Him, our ' inarticulate groanings ' are prevailing supplica- 
tions in God's ear. This is the Spirit's ' intercession/ It 
cf. ver. 34. is the complement of the intercession of Christ. The Holy 
cf. jo. xiv. Spirit is our Lord's Successor. In the days of His flesh our 
26. * ' Lord was the mind of God and the love of God in contact 
with human need. When He took His departure, that point 
of contact was removed ; but another was established by 
the Holy Spirit's advent. He is now what our Lord was in 
the days of His flesh — God's earthly representative, on the 
one hand advocating God's cause with men, and on the other 
conveying their responses to God. His intercession is the 
pledge of our acceptance. It is the taking up of our prayers 
by God, their entrance into His very heart. It is God's 
espousal of our cause. 

26 Likewise the Spirit also lends a helping hand to our weak- 
ness. For what to pray for as we should we do not know, but 
the Spirit Himself pleads for us with inarticulate groanings ; x 

27 and the Searcher of hearts knows what cause the Spirit espouses, 
because it is as God would have it 2 that He pleads the cause 

28 of the saints. And we know that with those who love God 
He co-operates in everything for good 3 — with those who are 

29 called in accordance with His purpose. For those whom He 

1 The groanings are ours, not the Spirit's. Cf. Aug. In Joan. Ev. Tract ^vi. 2 : 
* In nobis gemit, quia gemere nos facit. Nee parva res est, quod nos docet 
Spiritus sanctus gemere : insinuat enim nobis quia peregrinamur, et docet nos in 
patriam suspirare, et ipso desiderio gemimus. 5 

8 Kara Qeou, cf. 2 Cor. vii. 9-1 1. 

3 This construction makes the sentence an amplification of Kara Qeov, and it is 
attested by (1) the addition of 6 Qe6$ after <rwepye? in AB, and (2) the absence of 
6 Qe6s in ver. 29, implying that avvtpyei and rpoiyvu have the same subj. The 
rendering ' for those who love God all things co-operate for good ' is, however, 
grammatically no less possible. 



THE THIRD MISSION 423 

foreknew, He also foreordained for conformation to the 
image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among 
so many brothers ; and whom He foreordained these He also 
called ; and whom He called, these He also accounted right- 
eous ; and whom He accounted righteous, these He also cf. ver. 17, 
glorified. 

And now the Apostle draws to a conclusion. He surveys The 
his argument, and exults in the believer's eternal security security 
confirmed by a double guarantee. God is on our side, and °/^ be ' 
the evidence is the Cross of Christ : ' He did not spare His 
own Son but surrendered Him for us all.' The love which 
faced that supreme Sacrifice will withhold nothing. And 
our acquittal is absolute. It is God's verdict, and God's 
verdict is final. We are one with Christ, not only in His 
Death but in His Resurrection ; and the presence of our 
Representative at God's right hand is the pledge of our 
future glory. His love is our security, and it is an unfailing 
love. It holds us in its grasp, and it will never let us go. 

That was the Apostle's persuasion, and it was born of 
experience. The love of Christ had succoured him in all the 
manifold distresses of the bygone years, and brought him cf. 2 Cor. 
through every conflict a conqueror and more than a conqueror; "' 23 " 27 ' 
and he recognised in the experience of the past a prophecy 
of the future. The love which had blessed him hitherto, 
would never fail him. It would attend him to the end of 
his days, nor would it cease there. It would reach out into 
the unknown Eternity. He conjures up the mysterious 
terrors of the Unseen, marshals them in grim array, and sets 
them at defiance. ' Neither death ' — that black shadow 
which is ever travelling toward us across the waste and will 
presently engulf us. ' Nor life ' — a worse terror still, more 
mysterious, more perilous. 

' Many there be that seek Thy face 
To meet the hour of parting breath 5 
But 'tis for life I need Thy grace : 
Life is more solemn still than death/ 

What dread chances it holds ! what appalling possibilities 
of disaster, suffering, and shame ! ' Nor angels nor principal- 
ities nor powers ' — the innumerable hosts which encompass 



424 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

us, those mysterious forces which play upon our lives, in- 
calculable, uncontrollable. ' Nor things present nor things 
future, nor height nor depth ' — all dimensions of time and 
space ; this world, the next ; Heaven, Hell. And what 
more remains ? The Apostle sums up every possibility under 
one final and comprehensive category — ' nor any different 
creation.' ' I know not,' he means, ' what new environment 
may yet confront me, what strange world, what unimagined 
order, what play of forces more dread and solemn than I 
have hitherto experienced ; but I fear not even that. For 
there is nothing here, nothing there, nothing anywhere which 
I need dread, since, wherever I may be and whatever may 
emerge, the Love of Christ will be with me, my comrade 
and my portion/ 

It is told of Robert Bruce, the Scottish saint in the genera- 
tion succeeding the Reformation, that, as he lay a-dying, 
attended by his daughter, he suddenly exclaimed : ' Hold, 
daughter, my Master calls me/ And then he bade her fetch 
the Bible. ' Cast me up/ he said, ' the eighth chapter of 
Romans, and place my finger on these words, " I am per- 
suaded." ' And thus he died, with his finger and his heart 
resting there. 

31 What, then, shall we say in view of all this ? If God is 

32 for us, who is against us ? Seeing that He did not spare 
His own Son but surrendered Him for us all, how will He 
not also with Him graciously bestow everything upon us ? 

33 Who will bring a charge against God's elect ? It is God 
is. l. 8. 34 ' that accounts righteous : who is it that condemns ? ' It 

is Christ Jesus that died, or rather, was raised, He who is 

35 at the right hand of God, who is also pleading for us. Who 
will separate us from the love of Christ ? Will distress or 
anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or 

36 sword ? As it is written : 

Ps.xiiv. 22. ' For Thy sake we are being put to death all the day long ; 

We were reckoned as sheep for slaughter/ 

37 But amid all this we more than conquer through Him who 

38 loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor 
life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, 1 nor things 

1 The wosds otfre Svvdfien in the vast majority of MSS. stand after fiZWovra, but 
they should certainly stand after dpxal, forming a triple category oUtb tLyyeXoi otire 
apxal o#re Svvdfxeis. Unless indeed they are a mere interpolation (cf. I Cor. xv. 
24; Eph. i. 21; 1 Pet. iii. 22), their transposition is probably due to their 



THE THIRD MISSION 425 

39 present nor things future, no height nor depth, nor any 
different creation x will have the power to separate us from 
the love of God, the love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 



3. The Problem of the Election of Israel (ix-xi) 

The Apostle's task is accomplished. He has defined and The 
demonstrated his doctrine of Justification by Faith, and IsrferJrcf- 
answered the objections which were urged against it. ButJ ection - 
he does not conclude here. A problem still remained which 
was very grievous to his own heart and well-nigh disposed 
him to wish that a doctrine involving so terrible a consequence 
might be false. Its offence in the eyes of the Judaists lay 
in its obliteration of the distinction between Jews and Gen- 
tiles ; but the Apostle recognised that a heavier disaster had 
befallen Israel than the loss of her ancient prestige, her 
exclusive privilege. It was the tragedy of her utter rejection. 
She had refused her Saviour, the promised Messiah, and her 
heritage had passed to the believing Gentiles. They were 
now the people of God, and she was an outcast from His 
grace. It was a dire catastrophe, and well-nigh broke the 
Apostle's heart. For he loved his people. Their sacred 
tradition was precious and glorious in his eyes ; and when 
he contemplated the tragic denouement, the prayer of Moses 
rose to his lips : ' Oh, this people have sinned a great sin. ex. 
Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin ... ; and if not, blot 3I ' 32- 
me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.' 

ix. 1 It is truth that I am telling in Christ, it is no lie, my 
conscience supporting me with its testimony in the Holy 

2 Spirit — that I have great grief and my heart has ceaseless 2 

3 pain. I caught myself praying that I should be myself 
an accursed outcast from the Christ for the sake of my 

4 brothers, my kinsfolk according to the flesh. For the}/ are 

accidental omission from the text of an early MS. They would then be noted on 
the margin and might easily be misplaced in the text by a subsequent copyist. 
The Apostle is here alluding to the elaborate Jewish angelology which, especially 
in Gnostic circles, tended to develop into angelolatry. Cf. p. 550. 

1 Cf. Chrys. : 3 5e \£yei toiovtqv ecrriv' ei /ecu &\\r) Tcxravri] ktI<tis %v 8<rr) rj 
oputfitvi], S<rr] 77 I'orjrrj, ov$£v fj.e r9)$ dydirrjs eKeivrjS a.7r^crr7?cre. 

* dStdXeiTrros, 'incessant,' 'unremitting' : used of a racking cough — &<3iaAnrrtt$ 
5£ eira.ywvi{6fj.evos (Moulton and Milligan, Vocab.), 



XXXI 1. 



426 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Cf. Heb. 
ix. i, 6, 



Israelites ; tlieirs are the restoration to sonship > and the 
Glory, 1 and the Covenants, and the Lawgiving, and the 
5 Temple-service, and the Promises ; theirs are the Fathers, 
and of them sprang the Christ according to the flesh — He 
who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. 2 



(i) Elec 
tion. 



its three- To the discussion of this bitter problem he now addresses 
cation?* 6 " himself, and he grapples with it in anguish of soul : now 
vindicating God's righteousness and laying the responsibility 
on Israel ; then gladly recognising that her rejection is only 
partial, and there is still ' a remnant according to the 
election of grace ' ; and finally emerging into the triumphant 
assurance of her ultimate restoration and humanity's uni- 
versal salvation, 

His argument turns on three ideas which figured largely 
in Jewish theology — Election, the Sovereignty of God, and 
His Irresponsibility. 

Israel was the elect nation, and the Jews derived thence a 
fatal assurance of unassailable security. God had promised 

x The Shekinah (cf. Jo. i. 14 ; Heb. ix. 5). Cf. n. on 2 Cor. xii. 9, p. 338. 

* The great Fathers and the ancient versions agree in attaching 6 &v ixl ir&TUv 
Geos evXoyijrbs et's roi/s alwvas to 6 Xpicrrbs, but this construction was early 
challenged in the interests both of orthodoxy and of heresy. On the one hand, 
the text was quoted, as identifying Christ with God, by the Patripassians (cf. 
Hippolyt. Contra Noet. vi ; Epiphan. lvii. 2, 9) ; while, on the other hand, it 
offended the Arians (cf. Epist. of Co. of Antioch to Paul of Samosata, A.D. 269, 
Routh, Reliq. Sacr., 111. pp. 291 f.). And so the construction was altered by 
manipulation of the punctuation — a legitimate procedure, since punctuation was 
lacking in the earliest MSS. 1. A period was placed after (rapta, and the ensuing 
words were rendered either (1) 'He who is over all, even God, be (or 'is') 
blessed forever,' or (2) 'He who is over all is God blessed for ever.' 2. The 
period was placed after wdvTwv : ' the Christ according to the flesh, who is over 
all (cf. x. 12; Ac. x. 36). God be (or 'is') blessed for ever.' The objection 
to these latter constructions is that an ascription of glory to God is here abrupt 
and purposeless ; and, moreover, in a doxology evXoyrjTot always stands at the 
beginning (cf. Lk. i. 68 ; 2 Cor. i. 3 ; Eph. i. 3 ; I Pet. i. 3). It is a decisive 
confirmation of the former construction that it provides a natural and necessary 
antithesis to to Kara adptca : the Christ who was an Israelite ' according to the 
flesh ' was in truth the blessed and eternal God. It is no valid objection that 
nowhere else does Paul expressly designate Christ 'God,' but always 'the Lord' 
as distinguished from ' God the Father ' (cf. I Cor. viii. 6) ; for the designation is 
in no wise alien from his thought. Cf. the interchange of Uvevfia Qeov and 
Huev^a XpaxTov in viii. 9- 11. The Apostolic Father St. Ignatius could not have 
used phrases like 'lyvovs X/u<rr6j 6 Qebs rffiCiv so freely as he does (cf. Eph. 
inscr., i, xviii : Rom. inscr., iii, vi ; Polyc. viii ; Smyrn. i) unless the idea had been 
apostolic. 



THE THIRD MISSION 427 

to be the God of Abraham and his seed after him ; and thus, 
they argued, He was bound by an inviolable pledge, and 
could never disown them, The Apostle meets this conten- 
tion by demonstrating from the Scriptures that Election 
had a narrower compass than they supposed. Not all 
Abraham's descendants are his children and heirs of the 
Promise. There is an election within the election. The 
Scriptures recognise this, and he adduces an historic instance. 
Ishmael was a son of Abraham no less than Isaac, yet Ishmael 
was not ' a child of the Promise.' He was indeed Abraham's 
son by a heathen concubine, and it might be urged that this 
invalidated his title to rank with Isaac, the child of Sarah ; 
but then Jacob and Esau were sons of Isaac by the same 
mother, Rebecca, yet God, in the prophet's grim phrase, 
' loved Jacob and hated Esau.' 

6 Not that the word of God has lapsed. For not all who are 

7 of Israel's race are Israel ; nor because they are Abraham's 
seed are they all his children. No, ■ in Isaac shall thy seed 

3 be called.' That is, it is not the children of the flesh that are Gen. xxi. 

children of God ; no, it is the children of the Promise that I2 - 
9 are reckoned as seed. For the word is a word of promise, and 

it is this : ' At this season next year I will come, and Sarah 

10 shall have a son.' And, more than that, there is also the case xviij. 10. 
of Rebecca when she conceived by one man, our father Isaac. 

11 Ere the children were born or had done aught good or ill, that 
God's elective purpose might abide on the score not of works 

12 but of His call, it was told her : ' The elder shall be slave to X xt. 23. 

13 the younger ' ; and accordingly it is written : ' Jacob I loved, Mai. i. 2, 3. 
but Esau I hated.' 

Here the question emerges whether this was fair : and the (2) The 
Apostle answers it by asserting the Sovereignty of God—- 1° Godf nty 
that stern truth which finds exemplification in the story of 
Pharaoh. God shows mercy where He will, and where He 
will He hardens men's hearts ; and there is here no unfairness, 
since none has a claim upon Him. None is entitled to mercy 
or compassion, and where He displays either, it is pure un- 
merited grace. 

14 What, then, shall we say ? Is there unrighteousness with 

15 God ? Away with the idea ! He says to Moses : 'It will be Ex. xxxiii. 
mercy wherever I have mercy, and compassion wherever I *9- 

16 have compassion.' So then it depends not on man's will or 



428 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

ix. 16. *7 effort but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh : 
' For this very end I raised thee up, that I might demonstrate 
cf. Ex. iv. in thee My power, and that My name might be proclaimed 
tx'jz'xW l8 abroad in all the earth.' So then on whom He will He has 
4,' i 7 .' mercy, and whom He will He ' hardens.' 

(3) His But then, it may be urged, if it be God that has hardened 

biiity. 01 our hearts, why should He blame us for our unbelief ? This 
cf.is.xxix. objection the Apostle meets by affirming the Irresponsibility 
jer. X xvii?;' of God, borrowing an image which figures largely in Jewish 
wisd. xv. literature and likening God to a potter and man to the clay 
Eccius. which the potter fashions as he will. 

xxxiii. 13. 

' For the potter, pressing soft earth toilsomely, 
fashioneth each vessel for our service ; 
Nay, of the same clay he is wont to fashion both the vessels 
which minister pure offices 
and those of a contrary sort, all alike ; 
And what is the use of each vessel of either sort 
the workman is judge.' 

Here, suggests the Apostle, may lie the answer to that Jewish 
question why God first hardened Israel's heart, and then 
condemned her for her unbelief. Perhaps her privilege had 
an ulterior purpose. Perhaps the Jews were all the while 
' vessels of wrath ' doomed to destruction, and His long 
forbearance with them was nothing else than the working out 
of His gracious purpose toward His ' vessels of mercy ' — His 
believing people whether Jews or Gentiles. The idea found 
support in Scripture. Was it not the Gentiles that Hosea 
meant when he prophesied of the calling of those who were 
no people to be the people of God ? And did not Isaiah 
declare that, however numerous the nation of Israel might 
be, only ' the remnant ' would be saved ? 

19 You will say to me, then : ' Why does He still find fault ? 

20 For who is withstanding His will ? ' Nay, rather, man, who 
is. xxix. 16, are you that are bandying words with God ? ' Shall the thing 
xlv - 9- moulded say to him who moulded it : " Why didst thou make 
jer. xviii. 21 me thus ? " ' Has not ' the potter ' authority over ' the clay,' 
6 * of the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another 

22 for dishonour ? Suppose that, while it was God's will to 
Jer. i. 25 ; demonstrate His wrath and publish His power, He bore in 
is. liv. 16. much long-suffering with ' vessels of wrath ' fitted ' for destruc- 



THE THIRD MISSION 429 

*3tion,' that He might publish 1 the riches of His glory toward 
vessels of mercy which He prepared beforehand for glory — 

24 even us whom He also called, not only from among the Jews 

25 but from among the Gentiles also ? As He says also in Hosea : 

' I will call them that are no people to be My people ii. 23. 

and her that is not beloved to be beloved. 

26 And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, i. 10. 

" No people of Mine are ye," 
There shall they be called to be sons of the Living God.' 

27 And Isaiah cries concerning Israel : ' Though the number of *• 22, 23, 
the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is but the remnant 

28 that shall be saved. For a reckoning complete and concise 

29 will the Lord make upon the earth.' And, as Isaiah has previ- 
ously said, l * 9* 

* Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a seed, 

as Sodom we would have become, and like Gomorrah 
would we have been made.' 

Thus the long history of humanity had issued in a sur- An amaz- 
prising denouement. The Gentiles had won the prize which ing l! 
they had never sought ; and the Jews, though they had 
pursued it, had never reached the goal. The prize was right- 
eousness, and the Jews had missed it because they had 
pursued it along a false track. They had sought to win it 
by the works of the Law ; and the Gentiles, in their need 
and helplessness, had found it by faith in Christ. 

30 What, then, shall we say ? That Gentiles, who were not 
pursuing righteousness, won righteousness, a righteousness, 

31 however, which comes of faith ; whereas Israel, though pur- 

32 suing a law of righteousness, never reached one. Wherefore ? 
Because their starting-point was not faith but what they 
deemed works. They stumbled over ' the stone of stumbling/ 2 

33 as it is written : 

' Behold, I place in Sion a stone of stumbling and a rock of is. viii. 14, 
tripping, xxviii - l6 - 

and he who rests his faith on Him shall not be put to 
shame.' 3 

1 Omitting xal before tva yvwpiori with W. H. 

1 A continuation of the metaphor of the race in ver. 1 6 (rod rp^xovros) and 
vers. 30, 31. Cf. the description of a disaster at the Pythian Games through & 
cnariot striking the turning-post in Soph. Elect. 743-48. 

8 These two passages are similarly conjoined in 1 Pet. ii. 6, The quotation is 
evidently taken from a collection of ' testimonies =' Cf. p. 229. 



43o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Purpose of To appreciate this passage it should be observed that the 

ingar| C u- d * Apostle is grappling in anguish of soul with a grim and 

ment baffling problem ; and he thus far presents no adequate and 

final solution. He merely throws out a series of suggestions 

based on theological postulates which were indubitable to 

the Jewish mind but which appear less cogent from the 

Christian point of view. It was enough at the moment that 

he should silence the objections of his Jewish readers and 

lead them to recognition of the dire fact of Israel's rejection, 

and he presently emerges into a larger conception of God's 

providential dealings. 

its Hmita- Stern as it is, his idea of Election hardly admits of criticism, 

since it is nothing else than a reading of history. Ishmael 

and Esau stood in his thought for their descendants ; and 

the descendants of the former were the fierce tribe of the 

Gen. xvi. Ishmaelites, whose hand was against every man and every 

Ps. cxxxvii. man's hand against them, and the accursed Edomites, the 

7 * enemies of Israel and Israel's God. He reasons back from 

the actual issue to the eternal purpose. But the Christian 

spirit refuses to acquiesce in the Jewish dogmas of the 

Sovereignty and Irresponsibility of God. It repudiates the 

idea that God owes nothing to man. The creature has a 

claim on his Creator ; the child has a claim on his Father. 

It is indeed true that ' wherever He has mercy, it is mercy, 

and wherever He has compassion, it is compassion ' ; but 

i Pet. iv. He owes both, since He is ' a faithful Creator ' and, still more, 

since He is a Father. He would not be a Father if He did 

not love His children, especially His lost children, and do the 

utmost which love can devise to bring them home. 1 And 

as for the assertion of the Irresponsibility of God, it is open 

to obvious and fatal objections. Grant that we are but as 

clay in the hands of the potter, and He may make of us what 

He will — a vile utensil or a festal cup ; yet it were a shame 

1 Cf . George Eliot, Life, Append, to Chap, x by Mrs. John Cash : ' To 
something that followed from her intimating the claim of creatures upon their 
Creator, my father objected, " But we have no claim upon God." "No claim upon 
God!" she reiterated indignantly; "we have the strongest possible claim upon 
Him."' . . . '"There may be," she would say, "conduct on the part of a 
parent which should exonerate his child from further obligation to him ; but there 
cannot be action conceivable which should absolve the parent from obligation to 
serve his child, seeing that for that child's existence he is himself responsible."' 



THE THIRD MISSION 43* 

to Him if He deliberately fashioned vessels for destruction 
and not for use. His character as a good craftsman is at 
stake, and He owes it to Himself to make the best of His 
material and compel it to His purpose. 

' So, take and use Thy work : 

Amend what flaws may lurk, 
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim ! 

My times be in Thy hand ! 

Perfect the cup as planned ! 
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same ! ' 

This is indeed God's way. The Lord will perfect that Ps. 
which concerneth me : Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for cx 
ever ; forsake not the works of Thine own hands.' Nor is 
this the final definition of the relation between God and man. 
We are more, much more, than senseless clay in the Potter's 
hands. We are God's reasonable creatures ; we are His 
children created after the image of His Eternal Son, and He 
owes us a Father's love and sympathy and care. 

All this the Apostle duly recognises in the sequel ; and the 
fact is that he is not here expounding his own doctrine. His 
purpose is to beat down Jewish arrogance, and he confronts 
its pretensions with its own theological postulates. 

He has been writing hard things of his people ; and Israel's 
since he has harder things still to write, he reasseverates bmtj? sa " 
the undying affection which he bore them, and his grief at 
the disaster which had overtaken them. He was not exult- 
ing in their humiliation. On the contrary, their salvation 
was his constant and eager desire ; yet he could not close 
his eyes to their unhappy plight, and he proceeds to show 
that it was their own doing. They had indeed sought 
righteousness, but they had sought it in their own laborious 
and futile way by the works of the Law, and had refused 
God's way — the easy and sure way of faith in Christ. 

x. 1 Brothers, my heart's craving 1 and my prayer to God on 

e their behalf are for their salvation. I bear them testimony 

that they have a zeal for God, but it is an uninstructed zeal. 

3 For, ignoring God's righteousness and seeking to set up one 

1 i) ctiSoKla rrjs ifiijs icapdlat, 'the good pleasure of my heart,' what would con- 
tent it. Chrys. : eiSoKlav iyravda rty <r<£o$p<iv iTrtfvfxlav <prj<rl. 



432 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

of their own, they were not subjected to the righteousness 
of God. 

(i) The And they were inexcusable, since the very Law which 
bmtyof required Works revealed the better way of Faith. He ad- 
the Word, duces a passage in Moses' address to the Israelites when he 
Dt. xxx. was giving them the Law : ' This commandment which I 
"" I4, command thee this day, it is not too hard for thee, neither 
is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, 
" Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, 
and make us to hear it, that we may do it ? " Neither is 
it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, " Who will go 
over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, and make us to 
hear it, that we may do it ? " But the word is very nigh 
unto thee, on thy lips, and in thy heart, that thou mayest 
do it.' The Lawgiver is here warning the Israelites of their 
responsibility. They knew God's requirement, since it was 
plainly written in the Law which he had delivered to them. 
It was no unrevealed mystery, no inaccessible lore. The 
passage is an assertion of the simplicity and sufficiency of 
the Law, but the Apostle, handling the ancient Scriptures 
with his accustomed freedom, invests it with a significance 
which Moses never intended. In fact his reference is not a 
quotation but an adaptation, a mere literary allusion. He 
recalls the familiar words and fits them to his purpose. Here, 
he says, is the difference between the Law and the Gospel. 
The Law says : ' Do, and thou shalt live ' ; but the Gospel 
inculcates no laborious observances. Its command is : 
' Have faith in Christ.' He has wrought out salvation by 
His Incarnation and Resurrection, and these are accomplished 
facts. You need not ask : ' Who will go up to heaven and 
bring Him down ? ' for He came down and lived and died. 
Nor need you ask : ' Who will go down to the deep and raise 
Him from the dead ? ' for He is risen and ascended. He is 
the Living and Glorified Saviour, and nothing is required 
but a glad, brave faith in Him. ' We need not,' St. Chry- 
sostom puts it, ' go a far road or sail the ocean or cross 
mountains in order to be saved. No, though you will not 
so much as step over your threshold, you may be saved 
sitting at home/ 



THE THIRD MISSION 433 

Faith is all ; for is it not written that ' no one who sets 
his faith on Hirn shall be put to shame ' ? This is the charter 
of universal salvation. Salvation is by faith in Christ, and 
it is offered to Jew and Gentile indiscriminately. His mercy 
is for all who ' call upon His name ' ; and here lay the Apostle's 
justification in preaching to all, Jews and Gentiles alike. 

4 For the Law's goal is Christ, 1 that righteousness may accrue 

5 to every one who has faith. For Moses writes that ' the man Lev. xviii. 
who doeth ' the righteousness which comes of the Law ' shall 5- 

6 live in it.' But the righteousness which comes of Faith speaks 
thus : ' Say not in thy heart : " Who will go up to heaven ? " 

7 that is, to bring Christ down ; or, " Who will go down to the 
deep ? " 2 that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.' No, 

8 what is it that it says ? ' The Word is nigh thee on thy 
lips and in thy heart,' that is, the Word of Faith which we are 

9 proclaiming — that, if you take the confession ' on thy lips ' 
Jesus is Lord, and have the faith ' in thy heart ' that God cf. 1 Cor. 

10 raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. It is with the xii - 3- 
heart that one has faith and attains righteousness, and it is 
with the lips that one makes confession and attains salvation. 

11 For the Scripture says : ' No one who rests his faith on Him is. xxviii. 

12 shall be put to shame.' There is no distinction between Jew l6 - 
and Greek ; for the same Lord is Lord of all, rich toward all 

13 who call upon Him. For ' whosoever calls upon the name of joel ii. 32. 

14 the Lord shall be saved.' How, then, are they to call upon 
One in whom they never had faith ? And how are they to 
have faith in One whose message they never heard ? And 

5 how are they to hear it without one to proclaim it ? And how 
are they to proclaim it unless they be commissioned ? As it 
is written, ' How beautiful are the feet of those who preach is. m. 7. 
the Gospel of good things ! ' 

So Chrys., taking WXos as 'the aim,' 'the end sought' (cf. I Tim. i. 5). 
The end of the Law is Christ and the righteousness He bestows (cf. Gal. iii. 24), 
just as the end of the physician's art is health. Most of the Fathers understand 
by rt\os 'fulfilment' (cf. Lk. xxii. 37). Clem. Alex. De Div. Serv. 9, where 
TrXypiofia (cf. Rom. xiii. 10) is read for rAoy. Aug. Contra Adversar. Leg. et 
Proph. II. 26: 'Finis perficiens, non interficiens.' Ad Oros. contra Priscill. et 
Orig. 8 : ' finem non consumentem sed perficientem significat . . . quo lex 
perficiatur, non quo aboleatur. Quod et illic significat, ubi ait : Non vent legem 
solvere sed adimplere (Mt. v. 17).' Similarly Orig., Ambrstr. Most moderns 
take r Aos in the sense of ' termination ' : ' Christ has put an end to the Law ' 
(cf. Mt. xi. 13; Lk. xvi. 16). 

* #/3v<T0-o?, 'the depth of the sea' (cf. Ps. cvii. 26). Quoting freely, the 
Apostle writes rh KarafflveTai els rty 8.fiv<r<rov ; for rl$ Secure pd<rei ijfjuv els rb idpav 
rfjs $a\d<ririjs ; making the two questions correspond. 
2E 



434 EIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



(a) Her And this was the condemnation of the Jews : they had 

^regard not h ear k ene( i to the Gospel. And what was the reason ? 
It was not that they had never heard it ; for it had been 

cf. xv. 19. published near and far. There was no corner of the wide- 
spread Empire whither it had not penetrated. 1 In truth it 

cf. Ps. xix. was like ' the music of the spheres/ filling the broad firma- 
ment and unheard only by inattentive ears, unperceived only 
by dull hearts. And this was the reason of Israel's faithless- 
ness. The music of the Gospel was in her ears, but she had 
never perceived it. And the Gentiles had perceived it and 
hearkened to it — the stupid, despised Gentiles. 



Hit t. 



Ps. xix. 4. 



Dt. xxxii. 

21. 



lxv. i, a. 



Assurance 
of Israel's 
restora- 
tion: 



16 But they did not all hearken to the Gospel. No, for Isaiah 
says : ' Lord, who had faith in the message he heard from 

17 us ? ' So faith springs from the message one hears, and the 

18 message one hears is conveyed by the word of Christ. But, 
I say, did they never hear it ? Yes, indeed : 

' To all the earth went forth their speech, 
and to the limits of the world their words/ 

19 But, I say, did Israel never perceive it ? First there is Moses, 
and he says : 

' I will stir you to jealousy against a nation which is no 
nation, 
against a nation without understanding will I stir you 
to wrath/ 

20 But Isaiah speaks out boldly : 

' I was found by those who were not seeking Me ; 

I was made manifest to those who were not inquiring 
of Me'; 

31 while with reference to Israel he says : ' All the day long I 
stretched forth My hands to a people disobedient and rebellious/ 

There was no evasion of the tragic fact. Israel by her 
faithlessness had forfeited her ancient glory. She was no 
longer the holy nation, the people of God. But was her 
rejection complete and irrevocable ? The very suggestion 
was intolerable to the Apostle. It was ruled out, in his 
judgment, alike by personal and providential considerations. 
He was himself an Israelite, and not only did the destiny of 
his people engage his sympathy but it involved his own. 
He knew that he was saved by faith, and this sufficed to 

1 Cf. Chrys. : ovdi yap iv yuvla /M/cpz rb y€r6fwop fy, 4XV h y§ isal 9*\drri 
tiul wavraxov T7js oUov/Aivyt. 



THE THIRD MISSION 435 

assure him that the Israelites were not outcasts from grace. 
And, moreover, God's purpose was invincible and His love 
inexhaustible. He ' never regrets His gifts of grace and His cf. xi. 39. 
calling/ Where He once loves, He loves for ever. This is 
the assurance on which the Jews built their false security ; 
and the assurance was just : it was their inference that was 
delusive. God's faithfulness did not bind Him to them 
despite their disloyalty ; it was rather a pledge that He would 
yet conquer their disloyalty and make them true to their 
vocation. 

And so the Apostle sets himself con amore to the task of 
vindicating the faithfulness of God and disclosing the golden 
hope which shone for Israel behind the dark cloud oi her 
present shame. God had not, and He never would, cast her 
off. 

xi. 1 I say, then, ' did God cast off His people ? ' Awav with Pss. xciv. 
the idea ! I am an Israelite, sprung of Abraham's seed, a x 4» *£-, 
2 member of the tribe of Benjamin. God never cast off His j s 



am. xii. 



people whom He foreknew. 22. 

The argument is twofold. First, the Apostle resumes and (1) Tn. 
elaborates the idea which he has already introduced of a remnant. 
faithful remnant in Israel. In all ages there had been an Cf - ix - 2 ? 
election within the election, and this was the true Israel. Cf. ix. 7- 
In Elijah's day Israel was not the idolatrous nation but the I3 " 
seven thousand who had stood faithful and had never bowed 
a knee to Baal ; and now in like manner she was represented 
by those Jews who had welcomed the Gospel and inherited 
by faith the ancient promises. 

Do you not know what the Scripture says in the story of 1 Ki. >ix. 

3 Elijah — how he pleads with God against Israel ? ' Lord, IO ' l8 
they have killed Thy prophets, they have dug down Thine 
altars ; and I am left alone, and they are seeking rny life.' 

4 But what says the divine response to him ? ' I have left 
for Myself seven thousand men, who never bowed a knee to 

5 Baal.' 1 Thus, then, at the present crisis also there has 

1 rr} Bda\ (LXX t<$ BdaX). The fern, was formerly explained either by an 
ellipse of eUovi, 'the image of Baal' (Euth. Zig., A.V., Grot.) or by the 
supposition that Queen Jezebel worshipped a feminine idol (Wetstein). The fact 
is that v B<faX, which occurs frequently in LXX (cf. I Sam. vii. 4 ; Jer. ii. 28, 
xi. 13, xix. 5, xxxii. 35 ; Hos. ii. 8 ; Zeph. i. 4), is Q'ri : in reading the 
Scriptures al<jyvvf\^ 'shame,' was substituted for the unholy name ' Baal,' and the 
fern. art. indicated this. 



436 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



XXIX. 

10; Dt. 
xxix. 4. 

Ps. lxix. 
22, 23 ; cf. 
xxxv. 8. 



IO 



turned out to be a remnant according to the election of grace. 

6 And if it be by grace, it is no longer on the score of works ; 
else the grace turns out to be no longer grace. 

7 What, then ? The thing which Israel is seeking after, she 
never obtained ; but her elect obtained it. And all the rest 

8 grew callous, as it is written : ' God gave them a spirit of 
stupefaction — eyes to see nothing and ears to hear nothing — 

9 until this very day/ And David says : 

' Let their table be made a snare and a prey 
and a trap * and a retribution to them ; 
Let their eyes be darkened, that they may see nothing, 
and bow down their back continually/ 



(2) Provo 
cation of 
the faith- 
less multi- 
tude to re 
pentance. 



But what of the multitude of faithless Jews ? Was their 
rejection final, their ruin irretrievable ? It were indeed a 
sorry issue of those long centuries of abundant grace that 
only a meagre remnant should be saved from the nation's 
wreck. Here the Apostle reverts to the thought which he 
Cf. x. 19. has already quoted from the Scriptures — that the ulterior 
purpose of God's mercy to the Gentiles was to stir the faith- 
less Jews to jealousy and move them, in very chagrin, to 
repent and seek penitently the grace which they had forfeited. 

n I say, then, did they stumble to their fall ? Away with the 
idea ! No, by their lapse salvation has accrued to the Gentiles, 

12 to ' stir them to jealousy/ And if their lapse be the enrich- 
ment of the world and their loss the enrichment of the Gentiles, 
how much more their full restoration ! 



Dt. 
21. 



xxxu. 



Warning 
to be- 
lieving 
Gentiles. 



He addresses particularly his Gentile readers. He was 
their Apostle ; he had, in the providence of God, been com- 
missioned to preach the Gospel to them, and he ' glorified 
his ministry/ They knew how devotedly he discharged it ; 
but in truth their salvation was not his sole concern. He had 
his Jewish countrymen constantly in view, and his hope was 
that by the success of his Gentile ministry he might ' stir 
them to jealousy ' and turn their hearts. Nor was it an 
unreasonable expectation. The profound principle of Im- 
putation a operated here. The blood of Abraham and Isaac 
and Jacob and all the saints of old nWed in the veins of the 
faithless Jews, and even in their faithlessness they were 
* beloved for their fathers' sake/ As in the ancient heave- 






1 <rK&v8a\ov, cf. n. on I Cor. viti. 13, p. 272. 



Cf. pp. 402 f. 



THE THIRD MISSION 437 

offering the consecration of the first of the dough sanctified 
the whole mass, so its fathers' faith was evermore the nation's 
heritage, its inspiration and rebuke. 

This is a Jewish illustration, and the Apostle immediately The olive 
passes to another which his Gentile readers could better f n n gr af t ed 
appreciate. ' If the root be holy, so also are the branches.' Ranches. 
Israel was the tree — a good olive-tree ; and the Jews were 
the native branches. Some of them had proved barren. 
These were the unbelieving Jews ; and they had been broken 
off, and in their stead shoots of a wild olive-tree had been 
ingrafted on the stock. These latter were the believing 
Gentiles, and the purpose of the parable was to warn them 
against exulting in their preferment. That were a repetition 
of the offence which had cost the Jews so dear. They were 
alien branches ; and if they departed from the faith which 
had ingrafted them, the doom which had befallen the native 
branches would surely befall them. And if the Jews re- 
pented, they would be restored. They were the native 
branches, and if it were possible to ingraft alien shoots, it was 
more possible to reingraft them. 

13 It is to you Gentiles that I am speaking. Inasmuch as * I 

14 am an Apostle to Gentiles, I glorify my ministry in the hope of 
stirring my countrymen to jealousy and saving some of them. 

15 For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what 

16 will their reception be but life from the dead ? If ' the first- Num. xv. 
fruits ' be holy, so also is ' the dough ' ; and if the root be x 7- 21 Lxx - 

17 holy, so also are the branches. And if some of the branches 
were broken off and you, though but a wild olive, were in- 
grafted among them, and were given a share in the root which 

18 holds the sap of the olive-tree, boast not against the branches. 
If you do, it is not you that are carrying the root ; it is the 
root that is carrying you. 

19 You will say, then : ' Branches were broken off that I might 

20 be ingrafted.' Very good : it was for their faithlessness that 
they were broken off, while, as for you, it is by your faith that 
you stand fast. Be not uplifted with conceit ; no, be afraid. 

21 For if God did not spare the native branches, neither will He 

22 spare you. See, then, God's kindness and His severity. On 
the fallen rests God's severity, and on you His kindness, if 
you persist in His kindness ; otherwise you also will be cut off. 

x Omitting nkv oZv (KABCP) with DEFG. There is no reasonable interpreta- 
tion of nh ofo, into vtro ; and the simple fitv (L, Vulg., Chrys., Orig., Ambrstr.) 
implies an unexpressed antithesis (di). 



438 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

33 And as for the others, if they do not persist in their faithless* 
ness, they will be ingrafted ; for God has the power to ingraft 

«4 them again. If you were cut off from your native wild olive 
and, contrary to nature, were ingrafted into a good olive, how 
much more will these, the native branches, be ingrafted on 
their proper olive-tree ! . 

a technical It is indeed a telling parable ; yet ' it is not,' observes an 
tude actl ancient commentator, 1 ' in accordance with the law of hus- 
bandry/ and it is well for the success of the Apostle's argu- 
ment that it was addressed to readers who dwelt in cities 
and had no skill in arboriculture. The use of grafting is to 
provide the shoots with a vigorous root that they may be 
nourished by its sap and bear abundance of their proper 
fruit. Cuttings of an oleaster ingrafted on an olive would 
still bear their wild fruit, ' since/ says St. Jerome, ' the manner 
is rather for the branch to assimilate the strength of the root 
than for the root to change the branch into its own quality." 
And no less impracticable is the idea of the reingrafting of 
the severed branches. Their fate, as our Lord remarks in 
jo. xt. 6. His parable of the True Vine, is to be ' cast out and withered, 

and gathered and cast into the fire and burned.' 
The It is vain to allege, in needless solicitude for his technical 

inSperi* exactitude, that the Apostle, dealing with a miracle of grace, 
enceof intentionally describes an unnatural process. His purpose 
cf. ver. 24. was to demonstrate by a familiar analogy the reasonableness 
of God's providential dispensation, and it was essential that 
the analogy should be true to nature. The truth is that the 
passage is characteristic. The life of cities was the only life 
which Paul knew. Tarsus was his birthplace and the home 
of his childhood ; he had been educated at Jerusalem ; and 
the cities of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Achaia had been the 
exclusive scenes of his apostolic ministry. It was the teem- 
ing centres of population that he always sought in the course 
of his missionary journeys. He hastened from city to city ; 
and it is significant that he has mentioned nothing which 
Cf. 2 Cor. he encountered by the way save the obstacles which inter- 

xi. 25, 36. 

1 Ambrstr. Cf . Orig. : ' Sed ne hoc quidem lateat nos in hoc loco, quod non 
eo ordine Apostolus olivse et oleastri similitudinem posuit quo apud agricolas 
habetur. Ilii enim magis olivam oleastro inserere et non olivse oleastrum solent : 
Paulus vero apostolica auctoritate ordine commutato res magis causis quam 
causas rebus aptavit.' 



THE THIRD MISSION 439 

rupted his progress — shipwrecks, Hoods, and brigands. He 
had no eye for scenery, no interest in historic monuments ; 
and he never stayed to preach in the villages along his route. 
It was not that he despised those humble peasants, but that 
they were inaccessible to his message. They knew only their 
local dialects, and could not have understood his preaching 
in the Common Greek. 

And thus it came to pass that the city was his world, and Contrast 
his letters abound in allusions to its institutions and manners Lord° U 
— its craftsmen and traders ; its martial glitter and pomp ; cf. Rom. 
its law-courts ; * its theatres and games ; its architecture. 2 cor 2I n. 17; 
ft is another atmosphere that one breathes in reading the jfjfc 1 '} 14 ' 
Gospels. The Lord in the days of His flesh had His home in 22, v. 5 ; 
Galilee, and He loved its people and looked with kindly and 7> x ° r .' J*' 
s}anpathetic eyes on their employments and on all the wild tpb - Vl - 
and beautiful things of field and woodland. Cor. u. 14; 

Rom. xiv. 

'The Lake, l°[o C j° T ' 

The lonely peaks, the valleys, lily-lit, Cor. iv. 9, 

Were synagogues. The simplest sights we met — »*■ 2 *- 2 Z ; 

The Sower flinging seed on loam and rock ; 10-15. m ' 

The darnel in the wheat ; the mustard-tree 
That hath its seed so little, and its boughs 
Widespreading ; and the wandering sheep ; and nets 
Shot in the wimpled waters — drawing forth 
Great fish and small : — these, and a hundred such, 
Were pictures for Him from the page of life, 
Teaching by parable.' 

But that page of life was hidden from the Apostle, and his 
rare allusions to it betray his inexperience. When he quotes 1 Cor. ix. 
that humane ordinance of the ancient Law : ' Thou shalt not x im ° ' v * lSt 
muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,' it seems to 
him, oblivious of the Master's word that ' not a sparrow falls Mt. x. 29. 
on the ground without our Father/ incredible that God 
should be concerned for oxen ; and so he spiritualises the 
precept and interprets it of the preacher's right to main- 
tenance. 

And here again, when he essays an illustration from hus- spiritual 
bandry, he betrays his inexperience. His blunder would soieia- 13 

terest. 
1 Cf. the terms §ikcu6<w, diK&iiijfxa, diKaiwcis : /cptcrts, Kpijj.a, icpiveiv, &v<xKpivf.iv , 

xaraKplvctv. 

9 Cf. the term vIkoBo^. 



440 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

hardly be observed by his city-bred readers, nor would it 

have discomposed him greatly had he been informed that 

he had misconceived the method of grafting. His concern 

was not with husbandmen and their management of trees 

but with God and His ways with men ; and his illustration, 

such as it was, sufficed to enforce his argument, checking 

the confidence of his Gentile readers and opening an avenue 

of hope for the faithless Jews. 

The And now he proceeds to a second argument. He recog- 

ofYsrMTs nises in the dark tragedy of Israel's rejection a ' mystery ' ; 

and°there? anc ^ a mvs t er y> be it remembered, 1 signified a providential 

demption secret, a gracious purpose of God once hidden but now 

it y . revealed. The supreme mystery in the Apostle's thought 

was God's long neglect of the Gentile world ; and it had been 

revealed by the discovery in Christ of a limitless grace. 

Humanity had been dear to God all down the ages, and His 

election of Israel had been the working out of His purpose of 

universal redemption. And here the Apostle makes a bold 

venture of faith. The past was in his sight a prophecy of 

the future, and he recognised in every dark dispensation a 

mystery of God, a providential secret still hidden but one 

day to be gloriously revealed. Such a mystery was Israel's 

rejection. It was not, it could not be, final. ' God never 

regrets His gifts of grace and His calling.' 

1 My own hope is a sun will pierce 
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; 

That, after Last, returns the First, 
Though a wide compass round be fetched ; 

That what began best, can't end worst, 
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.' 

The enrichment of the Gentiles would discover to Israel 
her own loss ; and her desolate heart would turn to God, and 
she too would be saved — not a poor remnant but the whole 
nation. And thus, in God's unsearchable providence, the 
ultimate issue would be the redemption of universal humanity. 

25 I do not wish you, brothers, to ignore this mystery, lest 
you harbour conceit — that callousness has partially befallen 
Israel until the complement of the Gentiles have come in; 

26 and thus all Israel will be saved, as it is written : 

1 Cf. p. 320. 



THE THIRD MISSION 441 

' There will come out of Sion the Deliverer ; is. h x . 20, 

He will turn away impieties from Jacob. 2I - xxvii - 

27 And this will be for them My fulfilment of the Covenant — 9 * 

when I have taken away their sins.' 

28 As regards the Gospel they are enemies for your sake, but 
as regards the Election they are beloved for their fathers' 

29 sake ; for God never regrets His gifts of grace and His calling. 

30 As you once disobeyed God but have now experienced mercy 

31 by their disobedience, so they also have now disobeyed Him 
that, by the mercy you enjoy, they also on their part may 

32 now experience mercy. For God locked all up in the prison 
of disobedience that He might have mercy on all. 

S3 Ah, the depth of God's riches and wisdom and knowledge ! * Cf. Job v. 
How unsearchable are His judgments and untrackable His 9;lx - Io; 

J ° xxxiv. 24. 

ways ! 

34 'Who ever took knowledge of the Lord's mind? or who is. xi. 13; 

ever shared His counsels ? Jobxh. n. 

35 Or who first gave to Him that it should be repayed him ? ' 

36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. 
To Him be the glory for ever. Amen. 2 



Ill 

practical (xii-xiv) 



consecra- 



The Apostle's theological argument is now complete, but a call to 
his last word has yet to be spoken. Doctrine is valueless tion^ 
unless it issue in holiness ; and the doctrine of Justification 
by Faith is peculiarly liable to ethical perversion. And so 

1 So Orig., Chrys., taking irXotirov, <ro<pia$, and yvwo-ews as co-ordinate genitives 
after fiados. irXouros, 'riches in grace' (cf. ii. 4, ix. 23, x. 12). <ro<f>La is 
ratiocinative and yvucns intuitive. Ambrstr. takes <ro<f>Las and yvwaews as depen- 
dent on ttXovtov : ' the depth of the riches of both the wisdom and the knowledge 
of God.' This is grammatically legitimate, but the former construction is 
established by vers. 34, 35, where the Apostle repeats the three attributes of God 
in reverse order : His yvwcrcs — rls iyvu vovv Kvpiov ; His <ro(pla — rls <rufjLpov\os 
avrov eytvero; His irXovros — tLs vpoiduKev avT<2, k.t.X. 

2 Orig. sees here ' the mystery of the Trinity ' — God the Father from whom are 
all things, our Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things, and the Spirit in 
whom all are revealed ; and also in ver. 33, where ' depth of riches ' signifies the 
Father from whom are all things, ' depth of wisdom ' Christ who is His wisdom 
(cf . I Cor. i. 24), and ' depth of knowledge ' the Holy Spirit who knows the 
deep things of God (cf. I Cor. ii. 10, 11). Similarly Ambrstr. This is a mere 
fancy. It would require (1) if airy for els avrov and (2), as Aug. {Enarr. in 
Psalm. V, 4) observes, adroit for avrQ of the Three Persons. 



442 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

he concludes Ms encyclical with a series of practical counsels 
and exhortations. 

He begins with a call to consecration. 



Xll. 



i I exhort you, then, brothers, by the compassions of God, 
to present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God. This 

2 is your spiritual worship. 1 And do not follow the fashion of 
this age, but be transformed by the renewal of the mind, 2 so 
that you may prove what is the will of God, His good and 
well-pleasing and perfect will. 



Occasions 
of dissen- 
sion : 



(i) Diver- 
sity of 
spiritual 
endow- 
ments. 



i Cor. xii- 
xiv. 



And now he proceeds to deal with three questions which 
confronted all the communities of Gentile Christendom and 
disturbed their peace. 

The first was presented by the diversity of spiritual endow- 
ments and the heart-burning, the pride and jealousy which 
it engendered. This unhappy dissension had been rampant 
at Corinth a year previously. It was one of the questions 
which had been submitted to the Apostle's consideration by 
that contentious community, and he had discussed it ex- 
haustively in his reply ; s and here he merely reiterates his 
conception of the Church as an organic unity. It is a living 
body, and each believer is a member with his peculiar func- 
tion essential to the corporate welfare. Our spiritual en- 
dowments, whatever they may be, are God's appointments ; 
and our duty is to employ them faithfully. And he enforces 
this duty by a succession of practical precepts, pithy and 
memorable maxims relating to personal character and con- 
duct, behaviour to fellow-Christians, and the proper attitude 
toward outsiders, especially persecutors. 



3 By the grace which was given me I bid every one among you 
not to harbour a higher estimate of himself than he should, 
but to aim at a sober estimate in accordance with the measure 

4 of faith which God has apportioned to each. For just as in 
one body we have many members, and the members have not 

1 Xoyi<6s, (i) ' spiritual ' as opposed to co^an^s or <ra.pia.K6s (cf. I Pet. ii. 2, 5). 
Cf. Chrys. : \oyiKT)v Xarpelap' rovT^ariv, ovd£v fypvaav cuiixaTLKbv, ovdtv iraxi', 
oi>Uv ai<rdT)T6v, irv contrast with Jewish sacrifice, eKdv-q yap cufiartKi^. (2) 
* Reasonable,' 'rational,' in contrast with the sacrifice of &\oya fwo (cf. 2 Pet. ii. 
12 ; Jude 10). 

* Cf. n. on Phil. ii. 6, p. 514. • Cf. pp. 289 ff. 



THE THIRD MISSION 443 

5 all the same function, so we, many as we are, are one body 
in Christ and are individually related to one another as 

6 members. Since we have gifts of grace differing according 
to the grace which was given us, if it be prophecy, let us 

7 prophesy in proportion to our faith ; x if it be deaconship, 2 
let us devote ourselves to our deaconship ; if one be a teacher, 

8 let him devote himself to his teaching ; 3 if one's office be 
exhortation, let him devote himself to his exhortation ; if it 
be charity, let him do it with a spirit of liberality ; 4 if it be 
ruling, let him do it with earnestness ; if it be showing com- 
passion, let him do it cheerily. 

9 Let your love be unaffected. 5 Abhor what is evil ; cleave 

10 to what is good. In the matter of brotherly friendship have * Th - iv - 9» 
a friendly affection for each other ; in the matter of honour 

11 give each other precedence ; in earnestness be unslacking, in 
12 spirit fervent, the Lord's slaves; in your hope rejoice, in your 
13 distress endure, in your prayer persevere; have fellowship 

14 with the necessities of the saints ; prosecute hospitality. Bless 

15 your persecutors ; bless, and never curse. Rejoice with 

16 them that rejoice, weep with them that weep. Share one 
another's interests ; harbour no lofty ambitions but embark 

on the stream of lowly duties. ' Have a sober estimate of Prov. Hi. 7. 

17 yourselves.' Never repay evil with evil. 'Safeguard your Prov. Hi. 

18 honour in the sight of all men.' If possible, on your part, be 4LXX; cf. 

19 at peace with all men. Never avenge yourselves, beloved, 2I . 

but give room to the Wrath. 6 For it is written : ' It is for Me Dt. xxxii. 

20 to avenge : I will repay,' says the Lord. No, ' if your enemy 35- 

is hungry, feed him ; if he is thirsty, give him a drink ; for 2I) ^ x ^ 

1 Preaching is real only as it is the testimony of faith, the declaration of an 
actual experience (cf. Jer. xxiii. 28 ; 2 Cor. iv. 13). Or rrjs *-£<rrews may be 
understood as 'the Faith,' the objective standard of truth to which preaching 
must conform. 

3 diaxoviav, not 'ministry' generally (Chrys.) but the office of the deaconship. 
Cf . Pelag. : ' ministerii sacerdotalis vel diaconatus officii. ' 

3 Cf. p. 80. 

4 Cf . Sen. De Bene/. 11. vii. : ' Fabius Verrucosus beneficium ab homine duro 
aspere datum " pan em lapidosum" vocabat.' 

5 Cf. 2 Cor. vi. 6. Anne Bronte, Agnes Grey, chap, xv : ' "Stupid things !" 
muttered she. . . . She greeted them, however, with a cheerful smile, and 
protestations of pleasure at the happy meeting equal to their own.' 

6 Chrys. : ' What " wrath" ? That of God. For since this is the chief desire 
of one who has been wronged — to see himself in the enjoyment of redress, He 
gives this very thing in large abundance. For if he does not himself retaliate, 
God will be his Avenger. Permit Him therefore, he says, to prosecute.' Jer. 
Taylor, The Great Exemplar, 11. xii, Disc. XI, Part i. 1 : 'To that "wrath we 
must give place," saith St. Paul; that is "in well-doing" and evil-suffering 
"commit ourselves to His righteous judgment," leaving room for His execution, 
who will certainly do it if we snatch not the sword from His arm.' 



444 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

21 by doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head.' 1 Be 
not conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good. 

( 2 ) obedi- The Apostle now turns to a second practical question — 
enc f t0 , the Christian duty of obedience to civil rulers. There is no 

civil rulers. J 

evidence that the primitive Christians were ever turbulently 
disposed ; and they ere long proved themselves loyal and 
serviceable citizens of the Roman Empire. 2 Nevertheless 
in those early days they were generally regarded as a mere 
Jewish sect, and the Jews were the most troublesome of all 
Rome's subject races. The Messianic Hope was a powerful 
incentive to sedition, since the Saviour of Israel was conceived 
as a mighty king of David's lineage who should arise and 
crush the oppressor and establish the ancient throne in more 
than its ancient splendour ; and the fanatical Zealots were 
continually fanning the smouldering indignation and kindling 
the flame of insurrection. 3 Their identification with the 
Jews exposed the Christians to the suspicion of the imperial 

Cf. Ac.^ government ; and the Apostle had learned by experience 
how his preaching of Christ, the King of Israel, might be 
misconstrued into a treasonable propaganda. It was thus 
a counsel of prudence that the Christians should disarm 
suspicion by loyal submission to the constituted authorities. 

a divine But it was more. It was an absolute duty inasmuch as 
civil government is a divine ordinance. ' The existing authori- 
ties are ordered by God ; and so one who opposes the authori- 
tative order is in resistance to God's ordinance.' It was to this 
passage that the Royalist divines of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries appealed in vindication of their doctrines 
of the divine right of kings and the duty of passive obedience; 4 
but they overlooked the essential consideration that, as 
St. Chrysostom remarks, the Apostle inculcates here sub- 
mission not to governors but to government. ' He did not 

1 Cf. Ps. cxx. 4. The burning shame which your kindness will enkindle in 
your enemy's heart is the sorest punishment you can inflict upon him. Cf. Aug. 
De Doct. Chr. ill. 24: 'ad beneficentiam te potius charitas revocet, ut intelligas 
carbones ignis esse urentes pcenitentiae gemitus, quibus superbia sanatur ejus qui 
dolet se inimicum fuisse hominis a quo ejus miserise subvenitur,' 

* Cf. Epist. ad Diogn. v ; Tert. Apol. yj> 42. 
8 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. 35 f. 

* Cf. Jer. Taylor, Duct. Dub. ill. iii. 3, 



xvii. 6-8. 



ordinance. 



THE THIRD MISSION 445 

say, " No ruler exists but by God's appointment." No, it 
is of the thing that he is discoursing. " No authority," he 
says, " exists but by God's appointment ; and the existing 
authorities are ordered by God." Thus also, when a wise Pr ° v - xix > 

TA. I XX 

man says : "A wife is fitted to a man by the Lord," his 
meaning is that God made marriage, not that it is He who 
unites every man in his association with a woman. For 
we see many associating with each other for evil and not by 
the law of marriage.' The question of the legitimacy of 
resistance to tyranny does not here arise. The Apostle has 
in view a righteous and beneficent government ; and such a 
government he and his readers enjoyed in those days. Roman 
law was just and impartial; and repeatedly in the course cf. Ac. xvu 
of his travels — at Thessalonica, at Corinth, and at Ephesus — x Z ?i 7 ; x x i x 
its strong arm had succoured him and shielded him alike 35 * 41, 
from Jewish and from heathen violence. ' The authority ' had 
indeed proved ' God's minister for his good ' ; and he recog- 
nised what disasters would ensue from its dethronement. 
' Everything,' says St. Chrysostom, ' would go to wrack ; 
neither city nor farm, neither house nor market nor aught else 
would stand, but everything would be overturned.' Govern- 
ment was a beneficent institution. It was the bulwark of 
society, and anarchy was a crime against God and humanity. 

xiii. 1 Let every person be in subjection to the supreme autho- 
rities. For no authority exists but by God's appoint- 
ment ; and the existing authorities are ordered by God. 

2 And so one who opposes the authoritative order is in resistance 
to God's ordinance ; and the resist ers will bring doom upon 

3 themselves. For it is not good conduct but evil that need be 
afraid of rulers. Would you have no fear of the authority ? 

4 Do good, and you will win its praise ; for it is God's 
minister for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid ; 
for it is not to no purpose that it wears the sword : it is 
God's minister taking wrathful vengeance on evil be- 

shaviour. And therefore you must needs be in subjection 
not only on account of the wrath but also on account of 
conscience. 

It was thus incumbent upon Christians, wherever they Taxes a 
might be, to revere the civil authority and loyally obey its debt ' 
requirements, paying their taxes cheerfully, remarks the 
Apostle with a smile, though the taxgatherers might play the 



446 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

bully. For governmental imposts are not an exaction ; they 
are a debt, 1 and they must be paid ; for it is a religious duty 
to ' owe nothing to any/ except, adds the Apostle, that debt 
which can never be discharged — the debt of love, ' so burden- 
cf. Mt. some ; still paying, still to owe.' 2 And this, as our Lord has 

xxn. 34-40. Jr J ° 

taught us, is the only and all-sufficient fulfilment of the Law. 
Love }^our neighbour, and you will do him no manner of 
wrong ; all particular precepts will be superfluous. 

6 It is for this reason also that you pay taxes. For the tax- 

7 gatherers are God's officers devoted to this very task. Pay 
in every instance what you owe : gear where you owe gear, 
tribute where you owe tribute, fear where you owe fear, honour 

8 where you owe honour. 3 Owe nothing to any except mutual 

9 love. One who loves his fellow has fulfilled the Law. For 
the commandments ' Thou shalt not kill/ ' Thou shalt not 
steal/ ' Thou shalt not covet/ and every other, are summed 
up in this word : ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' 

10 Love works no evil to one's neighbour ; therefore love is the 
fulfilment of the Law. 

Anexhor- In kindly and dutiful love lies the golden secret of good 
citizenship ; and the obligation was strengthened by the 
prevailing expectation of the Lord's immediate Return. It 
was natural that the Jews with their secular ideal of the 
Messianic Salvation should entertain seditious dreams of the 
overthrow of the Roman dominion and the restoration of 
the kingdom to Israel ; but it was a nobler consummation 
that the Christians had in view — the passing of the long night 
and the breaking of the Eternal Day. And that hope incited 
them not to political but to spiritual emancipation. 

11 And this, knowing the crisis, that it is high time for you to 
be roused from sleep ; for now is the Salvation nearer to us 

12 than when we embraced the Faith. The night is far advanced, 
and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the works of 

13 darkness and clothe us with the armour of light. Let us 
comport ourselves becomingly as in the day-time, not in 
revelry and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, 

1 Cf. Mt. xxii. 21. Chrys. : oti x^P l -^f JL€ ^ aL atiro?? rr\v vrraKorjy d\\' 6<pei\ofJiev. 

1 Milton, Par. Lost, IV. 52-57. 

* Observe the paronomasia <pbpov ('custom '), <f>b{3ov (' fear '). On the oppression 
of the publicum and the resentment which it provoked, cf . The Days of His Flesh, 
pp. 123 ff. 



THE THIRD MISSION 447 

14 not in strife and jealousy. No, clothe you with the Lord 
Jesus Christ, 1 and make no provision for the gratification of 
your carnal lusts. 2 

And now the Apostle turns to a third practical question. (3) The 
A tendency to asceticism had invaded the Church and had of a"SSsnv f 
late extended widely ; especially, as will appear in due course, 
in the Province of Asia, where it manifested itself in dietary cf. Col. ii. 
restrictions, in fasting and in celibacy. It had indeed an j 6 ^ 3 j v z 
affinity with the Jewish prohibition of unclean food and with i-s- 
that antipathy to meat offered in heathen sacrifice which 
had recently excited such keen contention in the Church at Cf. 1 Cor. 
Corinth ; but it was a much larger question than either. It vm " x 
was a creation of the spirit of the age, and it had both its 
Jewish and its pagan phase. 

Its Jewish phase was Essenism. 3 The Essenes make Essenism. 
their first appearance in Jewish history about the middle of 
the second century B.C. ; and though never numerous — 
only some four thousand in the days of Philo and Josephus — 
they figured conspicuously in the national life and are ranked 
by the Jewish historian with the Pharisees and Sadducees 
as the third Jewish sect. 4 They were a monastic order, and 
their principal settlement was in the Wilderness of En-Gedi 
on the western shore of the Dead Sea. They maintained 
themselves by industry, chiefly agriculture ; and they 
eschewed sexual intercourse, abstained from flesh and wine, 
and practised fasting. 5 

Just as Sadduceeism was likened by the Rabbis and the 

1 Cf. n. on Gal. iii. 27, p. 207. 

* This (vers. 13, 14) is the passage on which St. Augustine's eyes lighted when, 
amid his spiritual distress, he opened his copy of St. Paul's Epistles in obedience 
to a voice — a child's at play in the neighbouring garden — chanting ' Take, read ; 
take, read.' Cf. Confess, vill. 12. 

* On the Essenes cf. Jos. De Bell. Jud. II. viii. 2-13; Ant. xiii. v. 9, xvm. 
i. 5; Philo, Quod Omnis Probus Liber ; 12 f . ; Plin. Nat. Hist. v. 15. Also 
Lightfoot, Colossians, pp. 347 ff. ; Schiirer, Jewish People, II. ii. pp. 188 ff . ; 
Keim, Jesus of Nazareth, 1. pp. 365 ff. ; Hausrath, N. T. Times, 1. pp. 153 ff. 

4 Jos. Ant. xiii. v. 9 ; De Bell. Jud. 11. viii. 2 ; Vit. 2. 

* Their abstinence from flesh and wine is expressly affirmed by St. Jerome on 
the alleged authority of Josephus {Adv. Jovinian. II.), and it is implied by the 
historian in De Bell. Jud. 11. viii. 5. Cf. the Essenic characterisation of James 
the Lord's brother by Hegesippus (Eus. Hist. Eccl. 11. 23) : olvov /cal <rlKepa •i/K 
i-Kiev otek tfxipvxov 2<paye, Lightfoot, Col. p. 84. 



448 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Neopytha- Christian Fathers to Epicureanism * and Pharisaism, with 
u more justice, to Stoicism, 2 so Essenism had its pagan counter- 
part in Neopythagoreanism. It was, according to Josephus, 
merely Neopythagoreanism ingrafted on the stem of 
Judaism ; 3 but the truth is rather that they are kindred 
manifestations of the spirit which in those days was every- 
where stirring in the souls of men. The Pythagoreans were 
vegetarians, and their abstinence from flesh was a corollary 
of their doctrine of the Transmigration of Souls, since it 
might happen that in slaying and eating an animal one was 
guilty of a criminal impiety, ' unwittingly assailing a parent's 
soul and violating by blade or tooth the lodging of some kin- 
dred spirit.' But they recommended it also for humanitarian 
and valetudinary reasons, and it gained numerous adherents. 
Seneca tells us 4 that in his youth he was won to the practice 
of vegetarianism by his Pythagorean tutor Sotion, and 
abandoned it only at the instance of his unphilosophical 
father to escape the odium which was excited in the reign of 
Tiberius against alien superstitions. 5 
Asceticism It is thus no marvel that asceticism should have invaded 
church, the Christian Church. It is recorded of St. Matthew the 
Apostle and Evangelist that he was a vegetarian, living on 
' seeds and nuts and herbs without flesh ' ; 6 and of James 
the Lord's brother that he ' neither drank wine and strong 
drink nor ate flesh.' 7 Such examples would be potent with 
the Jewish Christians, and would facilitate the spread of 
Neopythagoreanism in Gentile communities. Nevertheless 
it was an unfortunate development. Asceticism is essen- 
tially antagonistic to the spirit of Christianity. Its offence 
cf. ver. i 4 . is twofold — on the one hand, its underlying assumption of 
cf. ver. 17. the inherent evil of matter, and, on the other, its despirituali- 
sation of religion. And apart from its theoretical implicates 
it was inevitable that its invasion of the Church should 
occasion grave dissension and hot recrimination, since the 
ascetics, probably a minority in each community, would fain 

1 Cf. Keim, Jes. of Naz. y 1. p. 354. 

8 Cf. Jos. Vit. 2. 3 Ant. xv. x. 4. 

4 Epist. cvni. 6 Cf. Tac. Ann. II. 85. 

• Clem. Alex. Pcedag. II. i. 16. 

1 Hegesippus in Eus. Hist. Eccl. II. 23. 



THE THIRD MISSION 449 

have made their practices universally obligatory. They 
■ passed judgment ' on the laxity of their liberal-minded 
neighbours, and the latter retaliated by ' setting them at 
naught ' as worthless bigots. 

The Apostle's sympathies were with the liberal party, and An open 
he expressly ranges himself on their side by ascribing the qm 
scrupulosity of the ascetics to the weakness of their faith. 
Yet he recognises that they too were in fault. They had 
failed, not without provocation, in the paramount duty of 
Christian charity. He will not enter upon a controversy : 
that were unprofitable work, issuing only in embitterment, 
and there was already too much of it. And so he adopts 
the wiser course of defining the attitude which the two 
parties should maintain toward each other. 

xiv. 1 One who is weak in faith receive — not for discussion of 

2 disputed opinions. One man's faith lets him eat every 
sort of food, while one who is weak eats only vegetables. 

3 The man who eats must not set at naught the man who 
abstains ; and the man who abstains must not pass judg- 
ment on the man who eats ; for God received him. 

First he asserts the right of personal liberty. Every man The right 
is entitled to think and act according to his own judgment. j^ESS* 1 
He may indeed be mistaken, but he is responsible to the 
Lord alone. 

4 Who are you that pass judgment on another's servant ? 
It is for his own lord that he stands or falls. And stand he 

5 will ; for the Lord has power to make him stand. One man 
judges this day different from that ; another judges every 

6 day alike : let each be satisfied * in his own mind. The 
man who observes the day observes it for the Lord. And 
the man who eats eats for the Lord, for he gives thanks to 
God ; and the man who abstains abstains for the Lord, and 
gives thanks to God. 

7 None of us lives for himself, and none dies for himself ; 

8 for if we live, it is for the Lord that we live, and if we die, it 
is for the Lord that we die. Therefore, whether we live or 

9 die, we are the Lord's. For it was for this purpose that the 
Lord died and came to life again — that He might be Lord of 
both dead and living. 

10 But you — why are you passing judgment on your brother ? 
Or you, again — why are you setting your brother at naught ? 

1 Cf. n. on iv. 21, p. 399. 
2 F 



Vlll 



450 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

11 We shall all stand side by side at the Bar of God. For it 
is written : 

is. xiv. «3. * As I live, saith the Lord, to Me shall every knee bow, 

And every tongue shall make confession to God/ 

12 So then each of us will give account of himself to God. 

The duty In this thought of direct and personal responsibility to God 

c amy. j a y ^ e sovereign corrective alike of ascetic censoriousness 

and of the impatience which it provoked ; and the Apostle 

proceeds to reprobate the latter disposition, reaffirming the 

Cf. 1 Cor. principle which he has already enunciated in dealing with 
the kindred controversy at Corinth regarding the eating of 
meat sacrificed to idols, and speaking the more freely inas- 
much as he shared the liberal sentiment. He recognised the 
evil of asceticism, but he recognised also the duty of charity 
and respect even for an unreasonable scrupulosity. No 
food indeed is unclean per se ; yet if a man deems it unclean, 
it is unclean for him, and it were an injury to his soul to insist 
upon his partaking of it against the dictates, the mistaken 
dictates, of his conscience. 

13 Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another. No, 
let this rather be your judgment — never to place a stumbling- 

14 block in your brother's way or a snare. I know and am 
persuaded in the Lord Jesus that there is nothing defiling in 
itself ; but if one reckons a thing defiling, it is defiling for 

15 him. If by reason of the food you eat your brother is being 
grieved, you are no longer walking in the path of love. Do not 

16 destroy him by your food — one for whom Christ died. There- 
fore let not your common good be calumniated. For the 

Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteous- 

18 ness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. One who is herein 
a slave to Christ is well pleasing to God and approved by men. 

19 So then let us pursue the interests of peace and of mutual 
ao upbuilding. Do not for food's sake demolish the work of 

God. All food is clean, but it is bad for one to eat if he has 

21 scruples about it. The noble course is to refrain from eating 
flesh and drinking wine and everything which is a stumbling • 

22 block to your brother. As for you, the faith which you hold, 
hold it for yourself in the sight of God. Blessed is the man 
who does not pass judgment on himself in what he approves. 

a3But one who has misgivings stands condemned if he eats, 
inasmuch as it is not the outcome of faith ; and everything 
which is not the outcome of faith is sin. 



THE THIRD MISSION 451 

The encyclical concludes with a noble doxology : 1 Doxology 

concludmg 

xvi. 33 Now to Him who has power to strengthen you according the au- 
to my Gospel and the message of Jesus Christ, according to c 7 d,eal 
the revelation of the mystery kept silent throughout the 

26 course of times eternal, but manifested now, and through 
the prophetic scriptures according to the commandment of 
the Eternal God made known for the achievement of faith's 

27 surrender among all the Gentiles, to the only, the wise 
God through Jesus Christ — to whom be the glory for ever 
and ever. Amen. 

It is an effective conclusion skilfully summarising the a retro- 
argument of the Epistle ; and its significance appears w r hen the argu- 
we observe how the Apostle here reverts to his introduction. ment - 
There he defines his Gospel. Its theme was ' the Son of God, 
Jesus Christ,' and here he terms it ' the message of Jesus 
Christ.' 2 And it was no innovation, as the Judaists alleged. 
It was the fulfilment of the prophetic promise of a w r orld-wide 
salvation ; and here he reiterates this and introduces his 
grand conception of the ' mystery,' God's eternal purpose so 
long hidden from the blind eyes of men but intimated in the 
prophetic scriptures and illumined by the Christian revela- 
tion. In his introduction, again, he had spoken of his longing 
to visit his readers and ' impart to them some spiritual gift, 
that they might be strengthened ' ; and here he expresses a 
better wish — that they may be strengthened by God Himself. 

The most significant feature of the doxology, however, is a confes- 
its syntactical confusion. The Apostle's purpose at the out- ^Lord's 
set is to ascribe glory to God, and he shapes the sentence deity. 
with this end in view. '- To Him/ he says, ' who has power 
to strengthen you — the only, the wise God.' Here he adds 
1 through Jesus Christ,' since it is through Him that God is 
known and worshipped ; and he would naturally have con- 
tinued ' be the glory.' But that Blessed Name captivates 
his thoughts ; and, throwing syntax to the winds, he writes 
' through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory.' Copyists 
have rectified the construction by omitting the relative and 
reading ' to the only, the wise God through Jesus Christ be 

1 On the position of the Doxology (xvi. 25-27) cf. p. 377. 

* That is, { the message which* has Christ for its theme ' (cf . I Cor. i. 23, 
xv. 12; 2 Cor. i. 19, iv. 5, xi. 4), not 'the message which Christ preached* 
(Chrys. : rb Krjpvy/xa 'Irjaov XptcrroO" tovt£vtli>, 6 avrbs eKf;pv£ev). 



452 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the glory/ or by substituting the demonstrative pronoun : 
' to the only, the wise God through Jesus Christ, to Him be 
the glory.' But in thus amending the Apostle's grammar 
they have eliminated his thought. It was no mere inadvert- 
ence when he turned aside and ascribed to Christ the glory 
which belongs to God. It was a confession of his faith in 
the oneness of the Eternal Son with the Eternal Father. 



PERSONAL MESSAGES TO THE VARIOUS CHURCHES 

(i) To Rome (xv) 

Exhorta- The primary motif oi the encyclical, be it remembered, was 
mutual to forestall the machinations of the Apostle's Judaist adver- 
sympatby S aries ; and, since the Roman Church was a mixed com- 

between ' 

Jewish and munity, he appropriately begins his personal message with 
Christians, an exhortation to mutual forbearance and sympathy. The 
more liberal party of the Gentile converts must have patience 
with the scrupulosity of their Jewish fellows. Christ was 
the sovereign Exemplar for both. His grace had compre- 
hended Jews and Gentiles, and they should have room in 
their hearts for one another. There was here an especial 
lesson for the Jewish party. The Lord had indeed been ' a 
Cf. ix. 5. minister to the circumcised.' He had been a Jew according 
to the flesh, and the land of Israel had been the scene of His 
earthly ministry ; but the reason was purely dispensational 
— not that He was the Redeemer of the Jews alone but that 
He might link His universal grace with the historic prepara- 
tion and ' confirm the promises given to the fathers.' And 
these promises, as the Apostle shows by a series of scriptural 
testimonies, culled from the three divisions of the sacred 
literature — the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, 
were not limited to the Jews but embraced the Gentiles too. 

1 Now we who have strength ought to bear their weaknesses 

a who have none, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us 

please his neighbour for his good with a view to his upbuilding. 

3 For even the Christ did not please Himself. No, as it is 
Ps. bdx. 9. written, ' the reproaches of them that reproach Thee fell upon 

4 Me.' All that was written of old was written for our instruc- 
tion, that through endurance and the comfort of the Scrip- 

stures we may have hope. And may God, the giver of this 



THE THIRD MISSION 453 

endurance and comfort, grant you mutual sympathy according 

6 to Christ Jesus, that with one mind and voice you may glorify 
the God and Father of our Lord Josus Christ. 

7 Therefore receive one another, as the Christ also received 

8 us x for the glory of God. I mean that Christ has been made a 
minister to the circumcised in vindication of God's truthful- 
ness, that He might confirm the promises given to the fathers 

9 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it 
is written : 

' Therefore I will give thanks unto Thee among the Gentiles, p s , xv jjj, 
and unto Thy name will I sing praise.' 49- 

10 And again says the Scripture : ' Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with His D t. xxxii. 

11 people.' And again : 43. 

' Laud the Lord, all ye Gentiles, Ps. cxrii. 1. 

and let all the people belaud Him.' 

12 And again Isaiah says : 

' There will be the Root of Jesse, xi. 10. 

And One that ariseth to rule the Gentiles ; 
on Him the Gentiles will set their hope.' 

13 Now may God, the giver of this hope, fill you with all joy and 
peace in the exercise of faith, that you may have the hope 
abundantly in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

And now, with that tactful courtesy which always char- personal 
acterised him, he proceeds to obviate a possible misconcep- J^Jf na ' 
tion. He had written his encyclical with unrestrained 
freedom, and he recognised that certain of the sterner pas- 
sages in the course of his impassioned argument might be 
personally construed and resented as unjust aspersions on 
a community which he had never visited. And so he assures 
his readers that he had harboured no such intention. On the 
contrary, all that he had heard of them had persuaded him 
of the excellence of their Christian character and their 
doctrinal attainments. His argument was merely an affirma- 
tion of truths which they knew and believed but which they 
might easily forget ; and his emphasis was inspired by his 
apostolic authority and the momentousness of the issue. 
It was a vital cause that he was advocating— the universality 
of redemption ; and his achievements entitled him to vin- 
dicate it boldly. He had carried the Gospel for Jew and 

1 v/xas, though more strongly supported (NACD b ) than ^at (BD*P), is plainly 
a copyist's emendation, suggested by irpo<r\afifidv€<r$€. 



454 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Gentile to every land in the long circuit from Jerusalem to 
Illyricum, and his labours had been crowned with signal 
success. 

14 I am persuaded, my brothers — yes, I am myself persuaded — 
regarding you, that you are yourselves laden with goodness, 
replete with all knowledge, well able also to admonish one 

15 another. Yet I am writing to you somewhat boldly here and 
there, with the idea of putting you in remembrance, on the 

16 strength of the grace given me from God, that I may perform 
the office of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly work 
of the Gospel of God, in order that the offering up of the 
Gentiles may prove acceptable, having been sanctified in the 

17 Holy Spirit. It is, then, in Christ Jesus that I have the right 

18 to boast in my service of God. For I will not make bold to 
talk of anything save what Christ has wrought through me 

19 to win the Gentiles to obedience by word and work in the 
power of signs and portents, in the power of the Holy Spirit, 
insomuch that from Jerusalem and all round as far as 

20 Illyricum I have fulfilled the Gospel of the Christ ; yet 
always with the ambition of thus preaching it — not where 
Christ's name was known, lest I should be building on another 

21 man's foundation, but as it is written : 

is. lii. 15. ' They will see to whom no announcement of Him was ever 

made ; 
and they who have not heard will understand.' 

His pur- It was indeed a magnificent triumph, but it had been 
vSt hardly won. It had cost him ten weary years of toil and 

Rome. suffering. All the while the Imperial Capital in the West 
2I ; c,xlx 'had been the goal of his ambition, and he had hasted to 
accomplish his eastern ministry that he might betake himself 
thither. With that end in view he had steadfastly adhered 
cf. 3 Cor. to the rule of never preaching where the Gospel was already 
known ; but this had afforded him little absolution, since 
he was the only ' Apostle to the Gentiles,' and it had lain with 
him to evangelise all the wide circuit of Asia Minor, Mace- 
donia, and Achaia. But for him those lands would never 
have heard Christ's name, and others had visited them only 
to undo his work and excite dissension in his Churches. 
Thus his cherished design of preaching at Rome had remained 
hitherto unfulfilled. Now, however, his eastern ministry 
had at length been accomplished, and the realisation of his 
dream was in sight. He was on the eve of quitting Corinth 



THE THIRD MISSION 455 

and returning to Jerusalem with the contributions which the 
Churches of Macedonia and Achaia had entrusted to him for 
the relief of the poor in the Sacred Capital ; and his purpose 
was, as soon as he had discharged that errand, to inaugurate 
a far-reaching campaign in the West. His ultimate destina- 
tion was Spain, and in the course of his progress thither he 
would visit Rome. Such was his design, but in the inveterate 
hostility of the Judaist party he recognised a menace to its 
fulfilment. He anticipated trouble during his visit to Jeru- 
salem, and he begs the Christians of Rome to intercede with 
God on his behalf. 

22 And this is the reason why I was so often hindered from 

23 visiting you ; but now, since I have no more ground to occupy 
in these regions and have been longing to visit you for many 

24 years past, whenever I journey to Spain — for I am hoping in 
the course of my journey to get a sight of you and be forwarded 
to my destination by you, in the event of my first enjoying in 

25 a measure the satisfaction of your company. Just now, how- 
ever, I am journeying to Jerusalem on an errand of ministra- 

26 tion to the saints. For it was the good pleasure of Macedonia 
and Achaia to impart something to the poor among the saints 

27 at Jerusalem. Yes, it was their good pleasure, and they owe 
it to them ; for if the Gentiles have participated in their 
spiritual blessings, they ought in turn to perform their office 

28 by them in their material goods. So, after accomplishing this 
errand and putting them in possession of this harvest, I shall 

29 set out for Spain and take you by the way. And I know that, 
when I visit you, it will be in the plentitude of Christ's blessing. 

30 But I beseech you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and 
by the love of the Spirit to join me in wrestling in prayers to 

31 God on my behalf, that I may be rescued from the enemies 
of the Faith in Judaea and that the ministration I am conveying 

32 to Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the saints, so that I 
may, if God will, visit you in joy and find refreshment in your 
company. 

33 Now may God, the giver of peace, be with you all. 
Amen. 



(2) To Ephesus and the other Cities of Asia (xvi. 1-20) 
The office of conveying the encyclical to Ephesus was commen. 

dation o 
Phoebe. 



entrusted to an old and valued friend of the Apostle — Phcebe, c 



that deaconess of the Church of Cenchreae who had tended 
him in his sickness four years previously on the eve of his 



Cf. Ac. 
xviii. 1-3 



456 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

departure from Achaia ; * and he begins his personal message 
to the Churches of Asia with a note of introduction, at once 
attesting her bona fides and bespeaking for her the considera- 
tion which she so well deserved. Apparently she had an 
errand of her own to Ephesus, and she undertook to carry 
the letter thither. 

i Now I commend to you Phoebe our sister, who is a deaconess 

«of the Church at Cenchreae, that you give her a welcome in 

the Lord worthy of the saints, and befriend her in any matter 

where she may need you ; for she on her part has proved a 

friend in need to many and to myself. 

Greetings. Then, as was natural in a communication to a city where 
he had ministered so long, he addresses affectionate greetings 
to an extensive list of personal friends. First come his 
ancient and tried comrades, Prisca and Aquila, who had 
shared his toils and perils ever since he had encountered 
them at Corinth, and who were now playing a foremost part 
in the Christian community at Ephesus. Their house was 
one of the meeting-places of the Church, and he includes in 
his greeting the company which assembled there for fellow- 
ship and worship. 

These two are the only familiar names in the catalogue. 
The others are mentioned nowhere else, and not a few are 
names which were common among slaves — Andronicus, 
Ampliatus, Urbanus, Persis, Rufus, Asyncritus, Philologus, 
and Nereus. The households of Aristobulus and Narcissus 
were also slaves — the familice of citizens who do not appear 
to have been themselves Christians. 8 There is not one 

1 Cf. p. 189. 

* On the hypothesis that the epistle is a simple letter to the Church at Rome 
and the persons mentioned in xvi.l-20 Roman Christians, an interesting 
explanation of ol iic tuv 'Ajoutto^oiJXov and ol £k tQv TXapido-aov has been suggested 
(cf. Lightfoot, Phil., pp. 171 ff.). Aristobulus, the grandson of Herod the Great, 
resided at Rome during the reign of Claudius (cf. Jos. De Bell. Jtid. 11. xi. 6 ; 
Ant. XX. i. 2), and it is supposed that he may have bequeathed to the Emperor 
his retinue of slaves, who would thenceforth belong to the imperial household and 
be distinguished by the title of Aristobuliani. It countenances the idea that 
(i) there were, subsequently at all events, members of the imperial household in 
the Church at Rome (cf. Phil. iv. 22), and (2) the Jew Herodion (ver. 11) was 
evidently from his name a freedman of some prince of the Herodian family, and 
might be one of the Aristobuliani. Similarly a wealthy freedman in the reign of 
Claudius was named Narcissus (cf. Juv. xiv. 329 ; Tac. Ann. xin. i), and he 



THE THIRD MISSION 457 

personage in the list who was distinguished in the eyes of 
the world. They were all obscure folk, and their names 
have been rescued from oblivion by their association with 
the Apostle and their devotion to the Lord. 

At least six were Jews — Prisca, Aquila, and, as her name 
demonstrates, Mary ; 1 Andronicus, Junias, and Herodion. 
The Apostle designates the three last his ' fellow-country- 
men ' ; and the reason is that he would fain disarm the natural 
hostility of their Jewish hearts to his argument against 
Jewish privilege, his impassioned vindication of the equality 
of Jew and Gentile in the sight of God. And therefore he 
accords them that tender appellation which he had employed 
in his poignant protestation of undying affection for the 
people of Israel, ' my brothers, my kinsmen according to the ix. 
flesh.' He evinces no such solicitude regarding Prisca, 
Aquila, and Mary. Prisca and Aquila were his tried fellow- 
workers, and Mary had proved her devotion during his 
ministry at Ephesus : ' she laboured so much for us.' If, 
like those other ' labourers,' Tryphsena and Tryphosa, who 
were probably sisters, she was a deaconess, it may be that 
she had nursed him in sickness. 2 

After all those personal greetings the Apostle adds yet 
another of a larger sort : ' all the Churches of the Christ 
are greeting you.' It were an attenuation of his purpose 
to conceive that he meant merely ' all the Churches in Achaia/ 
and that these had formally commissioned him to convey on 
their behalf an affectionate greeting to their fellows-Christians 
in Asia. The fact is that the fame of the Churches of Ephesus 
and the adjacent cities was noised abroad. Wherever the 

also may be supposed to have bequeathed his families, to the Emperor. If it were 
possible to regard xvi. 1-20 as addressed to the Church at Rome, these identifica- 
tions would be attractive ; yet even then they would be precarious, since (1) the 
names Aristobulus and Narcissus were both common, especially in the East, and 
{2) the slaves, on the purely conjectural supposition of their bequeathal to the 
Emperor, would have been styled 'ApurTofiovXiai'oi and lHapKKxarta^oi, and Paul 
would have employed these designations. It may be added that, while epigraphic 
evidence shows that most of the other names in the passage were in use at Rome, 
it shows also that they were no less common in the East. Cf. Corp. Inscript. 
Gr<t€., where Epcenetus, Hernias, and Hermes appear in Ephesian and Tryphosa 
in Carian inscriptions. 

1 Most MSS. have the Hebr. form Mapidp. (NDEFGL). 

• Cf. p. 189. 



458 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

cf. ver. 19. Apostle had travelled, he had heard their praises. It was a 
universal chorus, and here he conveys it to their ears : ' all 
the Churches of the Christ are greeting you.' 

3 Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow-workers in Christ 

4 Jesus : they risked their own lives for mine ; and it is not 
I alone that am thankful to them, but all the Churches of 

5 the Gentiles. And greet the Church at their house. Greet 
my beloved Epaenetus, who is Asia's first-fruits for Christ. 

6, 7 Greet Mary, who laboured so much for us. 1 Greet Androni- 

cus and Junias, 2 my fellow-countrymen and once my 

fellow-captives : 3 they are men of note among the Apostles, 4 

8 and they have been in Christ longer than I. Greet 

gAmpliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, my 

10 fellow-worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. Greet 
Apelles, that approved Christian. Greet the household of 

11 Aristobulus. Greet Herodion, my fellow-countryman. 
Greet those of the household of Narcissus who are in the 

12 Lord. Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa, who labour in the 
Lord. Greet the beloved Persis : she laboured so much 

13m the Lord. Greet Rufus, that choice disciple, and his 

H mother and mine. Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, 

Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers of their company. 

15 Greet Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and 

16 Olympas, and all the saints of their company. Greet one 
another with a saintly kiss. All the Churches of Christ 
are greeting you. 

Heresy at Nevertheless even in Asia mischief was at work. The 
Churches were indeed untouched by the Judaist controversy, 

1 The bulk of the MSS. vary between els v/ias, 'for you' (H*ABC*P), and 
ir vfiiv, ' among you ' (DEFS r G), but els ^(aSLs, ' for us ' (C'L), seems preferable. 
If Mary's labour had been for the Church merely, no addition would have been 
necessary (cf. ver. 12). Paul is recalling her services to himself and his com- 
panions during their sojourn at Ephesus. Cf. Chrys. : d7ro<n-6\w»' ical evayyeXiffruv 
bvadeZaixivT) 8p6/u,ovs. The phrase occurs in a wife's epitaph on her husband in the 
cemetery of Pontianus at Rome: rets {i.e., fans) ftoi iroXXct eKorlaaev {Corp. 
Inscript. Grcec. 9552). 

* Or 'Junia,' when Andronicus and Junia, like Aquila and Prisca, Philologus 
and Julia, would doubtless be husband and wife. 

* avyyevels (cf. ix. 3), not 'kinsmen' but 'fellow-Jews.' Cf. ver. 21, where 
the designation distinguishes Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater from the half-Gentile 
Timothy (cf. Ac. xvi. 1). awaix^o-^rovs nov, on some unrecorded occasion 
during his troubled ministry at Ephesus (cf. 2 Cor. i. 8) or elsewhere ere they had 
settled there. 

4 Not, as the Fathers generally, that they were themselves Apostles in the wide 
use of the term (cf . p. 60), but that they were esteemed by the original Apostle*. 
They were old Christians, converted ere the rise of the Judaist controversy. 



THE THIRD MISSION 459 

but a subtle and pestilent heresy had emerged in their midst. 
It was, as will appear in due course, a shameless antinomian- 
ism in the guise of heathen philosophy ; and the Apostle 
entreats his friends to beware of it. 

17 Now I beseech you, brothers, to observe those who are 
creating divisions and snares contrary to the teaching which 

18 you learned. And shun their company ; for it is not to our 
Lord Christ that men of this sort are slaves, but to their own 
appetites, and by their affability and plausibility they deceive 

19 the hearts of the innocent. The fame of your loyalty has 
travelled all abroad ; over you, therefore, I rejoice, but I 
wish you to be wise in what is good and simple in what is bad. 

20 And God, the giver of peace, will crush Satan under your feet 
ere long. 

The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. 

Greeting from the Apostle's Friends and his Amanuensis at 
Corinth, appended to the Personal Message in each 
copy of the Encyclical (xvi. 21-24). 

21 Timothy, my fellow-worker, greets you ; and Lucius and 

22 Jason and Sosipater, my fellow-countrymen. I Tertius, who 

23 am writing the letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, my host 
and the host of the whole Church, greets you. Erastus, the 
City Treasurer, greets you ; and brother Quartus. 

24 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. 
Amen. 

VI 

THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM Ac. xx. 3 

xxi. 16. 

After the encyclical had been despatched to its various The start. 
destinations there was no more to be done at Corinth. It 
was now the beginning of February, a.d. 57 ; and since the 
Apostle was desirous, according to his wont, of reaching 
Jerusalem in time for the celebration of the Passover, which 
fell that year on April 7, it was necessary that he should 
address himself to the journey thither. A ship was about to 
sail from the port of Cenchrese with a complement of Jewish 
pilgrims, and he and his company arranged to travel by her ; 
but on the very eve of their departure it came to their know- 
ledge that a Jewish plot was a- foot against his life. Evidently a Jewish 
the intention was murder on the high seas, and amid that plot 



4 6o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



The 

overland 

route. 



At Troas. 



crowd of devotees it would have been easy for a fanatic to 
stab him in his sleep and cast his body overboard. 1 For- 
tunately he received timely warning and checkmated the 
murderous design. The rest of his companions-— the three 
Macedonians, Sopater, Aristarchus, and Secundus, the two 
Galatians, Gaius and Timothy, and the two Asians, Tychicus 
and Trophimus — quietly embarked ; but he and Luke re- 
mained behind, and then unobserved, since it was supposed 
that they had gone with the others, they quitted Corinth and 
pursued the overland route by way of Thessaly and Mace- 
donia. It was a toilsome journey, and the Apostle could no 
longer hope to reach Jerusalem in time for the Passover. 
This, however, was a lesser concern. His chief errand was 
the presentation of the bounty which the Churches of Mace- 
donia and Achaia had charged him and his colleagues to 
convey to the Sacred Capital ; and it was arranged that the 
seven should rejoin him in the course of the journey. The 
ship would put in at Ephesus, and they were to leave her 
there and betake themselves northward to Troas and await 
his arrival. 2 

It was a long journey that Paul and Luke had to make, 
and their progress was so delayed by the necessity of visiting 
the Churches en route at Bercea, Thessalonica, Apollonia, 
Amphipolis, and Philippi that it was the middle of April 3 ere 
they set sail from the port of Neapolis. The passage to 

1 Cf. the plot of the crew against the poet Arion on the voyage from Tarentum 
to Corinth : rods 8t iv ry 7re\dy€t iirifiovXefciv rbv 'Apiova £Kf3a\6vTas $x uv T * 
Xpfoa-Ta (Herod. I. 24). 

* Luke's narrative here (Ac. xx. 3-6) is very concise, and the situation has been 
obscured by two scribal attempts at elucidation : ( I ) the insertion of &XP 1 r ^ s 'A<n'as 
after (rvpeiircro ai)ry and (2) the alteration of irpoeXddvres into TpoaeXdbvres. The 
idea then is that none of the seven were with Paul when he started from Corinth, 
and Sopater, Aristarchus, and Secundus attached themselves to him during his 
progress through Macedonia and accompanied him to Asia, where he was joined 
by Gaius and Timothy from Galatia and by Tychicus and Trophimus from 
Ephesus. The fact is that ver. 4 is a catalogue of the companions who set out 
with him from Corinth, and ver. $a indicates their procedure on the discovery of 
the plot : ' they went on (by the ship) and waited for us (Paul and Luke) at 
Troas.' After his wont Luke makes no express mention of himself, but his use of 
the first pers. pron. indicates his presence and the part he played. Titus also was 
at Corinth (cf. p. 368), and as there is here no mention of him, it may be inferred 
that he remained with the Church which he had already served so well. 

" Cf. Append. I. 



THE THIRD MISSION 461 

Troas occupied four full days, and there they found their 
seven friends. 

Paul was no stranger at Troas. Twice already he had Resuscita- 
visited it, 1 and there was a considerable community of Chris- E^chus. 
tians in the city. He remained with them for a week. The 
last day of his sojourn was a Sunday, and in the evening the 
Church assembled for worship, concluding with the customary 
celebration of the Lord's Supper. The Apostle preached, and 
in the fulness of his heart he protracted his discourse until 
midnight. 2 The scene was an apartment in a poor house 
on the topmost storey of a tenement ; 8 and since it was not 
only crowded but lit with numerous lamps the atmosphere was 
stifling. One of the congregation, a lad named Eutychus, 
was seated on the ledge of an open window, and, falling a- 
drowse, he toppled over and was precipitated to the ground. 
The company hastened down ; and to their consternation 
found him dead ; 4 but Paul embraced the inanimate form cf. 2 Ki. 
and presently assured them that his life was in him. The lVl 34< 
lad was removed, and they returned to the upper room and 
partook of the Holy Supper, and thereafter the Apostle 
conversed with them until daybreak. It was then time for 
him to take his leave, and it was no small alleviation of their 
grief in parting with him that Eutychus was recovered. His 
friends brought him, and he joined in the farewell. 

Troas lay remote from the route of commerce, and it progress to 
appears that the Apostle and his companions hired a ship Mlletus - 
to convey them on their journey. 6 She would be a small 
craft, and she sailed early in the morning to profit by the 
northerly breeze which on that coast blows all day and falls 
in the evening. It was thus only by day that she could 
prosecute her voyage, and her first station for the night would 

1 Cf. pp. 124, 344. 

1 'Spiritual teachers,' observes Bengel, 'ought not to be too strictly bound by 
the clock, especially on a solemn and rare occasion.' 

* The third storey of an insula, immediately under the tiling, was occupied by 
the humbler sort of tenants. Cf. Juv. in. 199. 

* On the verdict of Luke the physician {tfpOr) veKp6s). Had the lad been merely 
stunned, he would have written tfpdy ws rei<p6s. Paul's words tj y&p <f v XV Q&roO 
iv aOr$ icrriv do not mean that his life had been in him all the time but that it had 
just returned. Cf. Grot. : 'jam nunc cum loquor vita ei rediit.' 

* A regular trader would have followed her own course, and it would have been 
impossible for Paul to determine what ports she should visit (cf. ver. 16). 



462 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Citation 
of the 
Ephesian 
Elders. 



Cf. vers. 
23-25. 



Confer- 
ence with 
them. 



be Assos. All the others embarked at Troas and sailed round 
Cape Lectum, but Paul chose to go a-foot across the pro- 
montory, a distance of fully twenty miles. It would be no 
hardship for one so accustomed to travel, and he desired a 
season of solitude that he might ponder what lay before him ; 
and therefore he went all alone, unaccompanied even by 
Luke. He joined the ship at Assos, and the next day's run 
brought her to Mitylene on the east of the island of Lesbos ; 
the third day (Wednesday) she reached an anchorage on 
the mainland abreast of the island of Chios, perhaps at Cape 
Argennum; and, sailing thence next morning, she emerged 
on the Caystrian Gulf and, striking across and rounding the 
western extremity of the island of Samos, put in for the night 
at Cape Trogy Ilium, 1 and on the fifth day (Friday) proceeded 
to Miletus. 

There she made a stay, since the Apostle had an office to 
discharge. The murderous plot of the Jews on the eve of 
his departure from Corinth had revealed to him the inveteracy 
of their hostility, and he had encountered fresh evidences of 
it in every town he had visited in the course of his journey 
through Macedonia. It had inspired him with gloomy fore- 
bodings of the fate in store for him at Jerusalem. He antici- 
pated the worst ; he was sure that he was going to his death. 
He would never pass that way again, and therefore he would 
fain deliver a last message to his friends at Ephesus, all the 
more that they were threatened with the invasion of a malig- 
nant heresy. His obvious course would have been to steer 
from Cape Argennum up the Caystrian Gulf and land at 
Ephesus ; but he was in haste to reach Jerusalem in time 
for the Feast of Pentecost, which fell that year on May 28, 
and a visit to a city where he had so many friends would 
have detained him too long. And so he had held on to 
Miletus, and thence he summoned the Ephesian Elders to 
wait upon him and receive his counsels. 

It was a short run from Trogyllium to Miletus, and the ship 
would reach the latter by noon. The route to Ephesus lay 



1 According to the interpolation in DHLP teal fieivavTes iv TpuyvXlq, (TparyiAX^, 
si. Tpvyv\l(j), TpuyvWLy). Cape Trogyllium {TpwytWiop &Kpov) was the western 
extremity of Mount Mycale, and in front of it lay an islet or rather three islets of 
the same name. Cf. Strabo, 636 ; Plin. Nat. Hist. v. 37. 



THE THIRD MISSION 463 

across the gulf of the Mseander, now silted up by the river's 
deposit, to the town of Priene, a distance of some ten miles, 
and thence some twenty miles by land ; and a courier would 
accomplish the journey in about eight hours. If the Elders 
set out betimes next morning (Saturday), they would, at 
their slower rate of travel, reach Miletus in the evening. 
It was thus in the night-time, after a brief repose, that the 
Apostle held his conference with them ; nor was it, as he cf. ver. 31 
reminded them, the first occasion in their experience when 
he had turned night into day. Luke would be present at 
the interview, and he has preserved a report of the Apostle's 
moving farewell. 1 

xx. 18 You know, from the first day when I set foot in Asia, 

19 how I conducted myself among you all the time, as the 
Lord's slave with all humility and tears and trials which 

20 fell to my lot amid the plots of the Jews. I never shrank 
from declaring to you anything that was profitable and 

21 teaching you in public and in your homes, always testifying 
both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God and 
faith in our Lord Jesus. 

22 And now, look 3^ou, bound in spirit, I am on the way to 
Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, 

23 except that the Holy Spirit is testifying in city after city 

24 and telling me that bonds and distresses await me. But 
I set everything at naught, nor do I count my life precious 

to me, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry cf. 2 Tim. 
which I received from the Lord Jesus — to testify the Gospel iv - 7- 
of the grace of God. 

25 And now, look you, I know that you will never see my face 
again — all you amongst whom I went about, proclaiming 

26 the Kingdom. Therefore I testify to you this day that I cf. xviii. 6 

27 am clean of the blood of all ; for I never shrank from 
declaring all the will of God to you. 

28 Take heed to yourselves and all the flock among which 
the Holy Spirit appointed you overseers, 2 that you shepherd 

1 The accuracy of the report is attested by its Pauline diction. Cf. SovXevew 
ti2 Kvpiii), TaireivoQpoativr) (ver. 19), <rv/j.(f>ipovTa (ver. 20), Hiaxovia (ver. 24), 
<pfl8o^.ai (ver. 29), vovdereiv (ver. 31), olKodofxetp (ver. 32), Koiriav (ver. 35). 

2 emcTKOTrovs, 'bishops.' Here (cf. I Pet. v. 2-4) it is the Elders (rrpecr^vTipot) 
of the Church that are addressed, and they are designated tirlvKOTrot. * Bishop ' is 
simply a corruption of the Greek term, and it should be expunged from the N. T. 
in view of the ecclesiastical significance which it subsequently acquired. There 
were not three orders in the Apostolic Church — Mgkotoi, vpecfitTepoi., and 
h&KQvoi, but only two — trpecr^urfpoi or iiricKoicoi and 8i&kovoi (cf. Phil. i. I j 



464 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the Church of the Lord which He won with His own 
Cf. Mt. vii. 29 blood. 1 I know that after my departure grievous wolves 

30 will come in among you and will not spare the flock ; and 
from your own midst men will arise and talk perverted 

31 things to draw the disciples away after them. Therefore 
be watchful, and remember that for three years night and 
day I never ceased with tears to admonish every one. 

32 And now I commend you to God and to the Word of His 
grace which has power to upbuild you and give you the 

Dt. xxxiii. 33 ' heritage ' among ' all His sanctified.' No man's gold or 
3 - 4> 34 silver or clothing did I ever covet : you are yourselves 

aware that these hands 2 served my needs and my com- 
35panions. I gave you every example that you ought to 

toil thus and help the weak, and remember the words of 

the Lord Jesus how He said Himself : ' It is more blessed 

to give than to receive.' 3 

The fare- Thereafter the Apostle kneeled down and prayed with 
them. They w T ere deeply moved, especially by his announce- 
ment that they would never see his face again ; and, as they 
gave him the parting kiss, 4 they clung about his neck with 
loud lamentation. It was now morning, and the breeze was 
rising and the ship was unfurling her sails. It was Sunday, 

cf. Rom. but the Apostle had cast off the bondage of Jewish Sabbata- 
rianism and had no scruple in pursuing his journey on the 

I Tim. iii. 1-13). iirlo-icoros, 'overseer,' was a common appellation of a shepherd 
(cf. 1 Pet. ii. 25), since a shepherd's business was to 'oversee 5 {iTurKoretv) his 
flock (cf. 1 Pet. v. 2) ; and the N. T. conception is that Christ is the supreme 
Shepherd or Overseer of the Church, and its ministers or presbyters His under - 
shepherds. Hence He is styled 6 'Apxt-irol/xyv (1 Pet. v. 4). Cf. p. 590. 

1 The chief MSS. are divided between ttjv £KK\t}<rLav rov Kvplov (AC*DE) and 
rty ckkX. rod Geov (NB), but the oldest authorities {e.g., Iren. III. xiv. 2) attest the 
former. The interchange of Ge6s and Ki/pios is frequent (cf. ver. 32 : rip G^j 
NACDEHLP ; r<£ Kvply B), their abbreviation (OS, K2) facilitating their con- 
fusion. It is decisive in favour of rov KvpLov that, while the phrases : Iy<rovs 
Xpurrbs 6 Geo? rjixwv and al/xa Qeov are frequent in sub-apostolic literature (cf. Ign. 
Eph. inscr., i), they are alien from N. T., which always maintains the distinction 
between 'God,' the Unseen Father, and 'the Lord,' His visible manifestation, 
Dei inuspecti aspectabilis imago (cf. n. on Rom. ix. 5, p. 426). It would 
support rov GeoO if the Apostle's words were regarded as a reference to Ps. lxxiv. 
2 ; but it would then be necessary to construe rod idlov as a gen. dependent on 
rod atfxaros, 'the blood of His own [Son].' Cf. Rom. viii. 32. See Wetstein's 
extensive and erudite critical note. 

1 Displaying his toil-worn hands : 'callosse, ut videtis' (Beng.). 

* A logion from the oral tradition, not preserved by our Evangelists. Cf. 
The Days of His Flesh, p. xix ; Unwritten Sayings of Our Lord, pp. 4 f . 

« Cf. p. 166. 



xiv. 5. 



THE THIRD MISSION 465 

Christian Day of Rest. The Ephesian Elders escorted him 
from the scene of the interview, probably a house of enter- 
tainment in the city, to the harbour, and would hardly let 
him go. The travellers had to ' tear themselves away.' 

Their course lay direct south, and with the wind astern Voyage to 
they reached the island of Cos that evening. Next morning yn 
they steered south-east, and still the breeze was fair, since 
they were entering the Levant, and there the prevailing winds 
are westerly. That evening they made the port of Rhodes 
at the northern extremity of the island of the same name ; 
and next day they reached Patara on the coast of Lycia, ' a 
great city with a harbour and many temples.' * There they 
found a large ship bound for Phoenicia, and, dismissing their 
little hired craft, they embarked in the more commodious 
and expeditious vessel. It seems that she coasted along to 
Myra ; 2 and thence, putting out to sea, she steered past the 
west of Cyprus and made for the port of Tyre. 

Her cargo was consigned to Tyre, but her destination was Sojourn 
Ptolemais some five and twenty miles southward, and after 
unlading she would proceed thither. It was a long way from 
Tyre to Jerusalem, and since he was evidently desirous of 
husbanding his strength in view of the ordeal which awaited 
him, the Apostle decided to remain by the ship to the end of 
her voyage. The unlading occupied a week, but the time 
was well employed in fellowship with the Christians of Tyre. 
They were a small community ; and, since they were un- 
apprised of his advent, he had to search them out, and it 
was not without difficulty that he discovered them in that 
great city. 3 When, however, he succeeded, they showed him 
lavish kindness. They were acquainted with the Jewish 
sentiment toward him, and they confirmed his apprehensions 
and solemnly warned him to keep away from Jerusalem. 
Their entreaties were unavailing, and when he took his 
departure, all the little community, even the women and 
children, escorted him and his companions to the harbour. 
They kneeled down on the beach and prayed, and then bade 
each other an affectionate farewell ; nor was it until the 

1 Strabo, 666. * Cod. Bez. (D) ets Udrapa xal Mi5/>ct. 

3 Cf. Ac. xxi. 4 : avevpdvrts 8t toi>s //arrets. Blass : ' avzvpeiv est guarend* 
reperire ; erat enim urb* magna, Christiani pauci.' 
2 G 



466 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

travellers were on board that their friends returned sorrow- 
fully home. 
At Steering southward along the coast, the ship reached 

^assarea, Ptolemais. This was her destination, 1 and the travellers 
quitted her. They spent a day with the Christians of the 
city, waiting for a coasting vessel to convey them to Csesarea, 2 
fully thirty miles farther on their way. At Caesarea they 
found a hospitable welcome in the house of Philip the Evan- 
gelist, one of the Seven Deacons ; 8 and there they remained 
' a good many days,' evidently, in view of what transpired, 
a full week at the least. Philip had four maiden daughters 
endowed with the spirit of prophecy, 4 and the danger which 
cf. i Cor. menaced the Apostle would not be hidden from them. Their 
r ' 34 ' sex precluded them from free remonstrance, but they would 
not suffer him to go unwarned to his doom. In the Church 
at Jerusalem there was a venerable prophet — that Agabus who 
had predicted the great famine some fourteen years pre- 
viously ; 5 and it would seem that they appealed to him. At 
all events he appeared on the scene and delivered an im- 
pressive warning after the histrionic manner of his order. 6 
warning He entered the assembly of the brethren and, taking Paul's 
' ga us ' girdle, bound with it his own feet and hands and intimated 
that the Jews would so bind its owner at Jerusalem and 
deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. 
The The announcement, chiming with the Apostle's own fore- 

resoiution. Coding at Miletus and the warning of the Christians at Tyre 
and deriving from the character of the speaker the authority 
of a divine oracle, profoundly moved his companions ; and 
the whole assemblage besought him to abandon his purpose 
of going up to Jerusalem. Their entreaties grieved him. 
He was going on the Lord's errand, and he was affected by 

1 rhv irXovv 8iavv<rarres (ver. 7) can only mean ' having finished the voyage ' ; 
End drb Tvpov must be construed, not with vXovv (as though rbv dirb Ttipov irXovv, 
'the voyage from Tyre'), but with KaTrjvTfaaf.i.ev , 'we arrived from Tyre at 
Ptolemais.' 

a If they had travelled by land from Ptolemais, they would never have gone 
near Caesarea ; they would have struck inland and followed the direct route to 
Jerusalem. 

• Cf. pp. 39 f. « Cf. p. 310. 

• Cf. p. 72. 

• Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 345. 



THE THIRD MISSION 467 

their affectionate importunity as the Lord had been by 
Peter's protest at Caesarea Philippi when He intimated His a. Mt. 
approaching Passion. It was cruel kindness to dissuade him xvu 2I * a3 ' 
thus from the ordeal, and he told them that he was ready not 
merely to be bound but to die at Jerusalem for the name of 
the Lord Jesus. This put them to silence, and they mourn- 
fully acquiesced. 

They did not, however, desist from their solicitude on his Progress 
behalf ; they rather redoubled it. With the fear of a re- saiem"* 
currence of his chronic malady before his eyes he had latterly, 
doubtless on the advice of Luke the physician, spared him- 
self unnecessary fatigue ; and now in prospect of the journey 
they made all provision for his easy transit. Jerusalem was 
some sixty miles distant from Caesarea, and they procured 
beasts of burden for his conveyance. 1 Nor would they 
permit him to make a single day's march of the journey. 
At a village on the route, perhaps Lydda, there dwelt a 
venerable Christian named Mnason. He was a native of cf. xi. ao. 
Cyprus, and had perhaps been won to the Faith by Peter in 
the course of the latter's mission in that district quarter of Cf. ix. 3* 
a century previously. Lydda, situated thirty-seven miles 3S * 
from Caesarea and twenty-three from Jerusalem, would be a 
convenient station, and it was arranged that the Apostle 
should break his journey there and pass the night at Mnason's 
house. Accordingly, when he set out, a deputation of the 
Caesarean Christians escorted him so far on his way and 
committed him to the care of his gracious host. 2 Next day 
he continued his journey, and on his arrival at the Sacred cf. xxiv. 
Capital on the eve of the Day of Pentecost he was joyfully "' 
welcomed. 

1 eina-KcvdacurBai (Ac. xxi. 15) denoted especially 'putting a load on beasts.' 
' The narrative is here (xxi. 16, 17) very obscure, and it is thus happily 
elucidated by Cod. Bez. (D) : cwrfkQov 5£ kclI r&v fiad^ruv dnb Kcucrapeias <rvv 
rjfiiv' octroi 5e ijyayov 17,11a? vpos ofis fei/K70w/x€i', nal Tapay€v6}i€vot efs tlvo. k&hi)v 
eyevoutda irapa ^Ivavuvi tlvl KvTpLy, fiadrjry dpxo-^- ndneldtv ii-iovres i}\do/A€V 
eis 'lepoaoXvfia, i>W5c£av re 17/ias dcr/x^vwj ol a$e\(pol, 'and there went with us 
also some of the disciples from Caesarea ; and these conducted us to our 
entertainers, and on arriving at a certain village we were lodged with a certain 
Mnason, a Cyprian, an early disciple. And setting out thence we came to 
Jerusalem, and the brothers welcomed us gladly.' 



BOOK III 

PAUL THE PRISONER OF JESUS CHRIST 

* O comrade bold, of toil and pain 1 

Thy trial how severe, 
When sever'd first by prisoner's chain 
From thy loved labour-sphere 1 

f Say, did impatience first impel 

The heaven-sent bond to break ? 
Or, could'st thou bear its hindrance well, 
Loitering for Jesu's sake ?' 

John Henry Newman. 



ARREST AT JERUSALEM 



Ac. xxi. 
t7-xxiii. 



On the following day the Presbytery of the Church convened Reception 
under the presidency of James, the Lord's brother ; * and p^ 8 ,. 
Paul and his companions appeared before it. They would tery. ' 
present the contributions which they had brought from 
the Churches of Macedonia and Achaia, and the Apostle told 
the story of his ministry among the Gentiles during these 
last four years. It was a thrilling narrative, and it was 
received with devout gratitude. 

It would have been well had this sentiment been universal judaist 
in the Church of Jerusalem, but the Presbytery was aware amm0Slt y- 
of the prevalence of a bitter animosity against the Apostle. 
Most of the Judasan Christians belonged to the Judaist party, 
and they regarded him as a renegade who went about seeking 
to pervert the Hellenistic Jews and persuading them to dis- 
continue the observance of the Mosaic Law, particularly the 
rite of Circumcision. It was of course a mischievous mis- 
representation. His actual contention was that Circumcision 
mattered nothing. Salvation was by faith in Christ and not 
by the rites of the Law, and he refused to impose Circum- 
cision on his Gentile converts ; but he never forbade it to 
the Jews. They were free to practise it and other Mosaic cf. i Cor. 
rites if they would, so long as they rested on Christ for vl1, l8 ' 20, 
salvation. His Judaist adversaries, however, ignored this 
essential distinction, and they had dinned their grievance 
into the ears of the Judaean Christians. 2 

The consequence was that he was regarded in Jerusalem Assoda- 
with inveterate hostility. The situation was perilous, and Apos°tL the 
the Presbytery had planned a remedy, a politic device for ™ th . . 
openly denning his attitude toward the Law and clearing votaries, 

1 Again (cf, pp. 60, in) apparently the original Apostles were absent. 
? KaTrjXT f dy]<To,v, cf . Tkc Days of His Flesh, p. xvii. 

ill 



472 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

himself of those malicious aspersions. It happened that there 
were four members of the Church who, on account of cere- 
monial defilement, had five days previously x assumed the 
Nazirite vow. It was accounted meritorious in those days 
that a Jew should associate himself with a poor votary and 
defray the Temple-charges for his purification ; 2 and the 
Presbytery's proposal was that Paul should undertake this 
charitable office on behalf of the four, and thus publish his 
reverence for the Law. It would involve no compromise of 
his principles, since he had himself assumed the Nazirite 
vow on the occasion of his last visit to Jerusalem. 3 He 
agreed, and repaired with the votaries to the Temple and 
intimated to the priest his association with them and his 
responsibility for their charges. 
Riot in the Since the vow ran for a week, it was accomplished on the 
c^Num. following day, and Paul then returned with them to the 
V1, 9 * Temple to discharge his liability. So far he had been un- 
molested, and it had seemed as though the Presbytery's 
stratagem would succeed ; but it was frustrated by an 
unfortunate circumstance. Among the pilgrims who had 
resorted to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost 
were some Jews from the Province of Asia, and it chanced 
that they encountered the Apostle in the city in company 
with Trophimus. The latter was an Ephesian, and they 
recognised him ; and presently they espied Paul within the 
Temple-precincts on his errand to the priest, and leaped to 
the conclusion that he had brought his Greek follower with 
him. It was an intolerable desecration that the feet of an 
' uncircumcised dog ' should tread the sacred court, and they 
seized the Apostle and shouted ' Israelites, to the rescue ! ' 
A wild tumult ensued. The whole city was roused, and Paul 
was beset by a mob of fanatics, who dragged him outwith the 
Temple and, lest he should elude their grasp and find 
sanctuary by the altar, shut the gates. Once in the street 
they showered blows upon him, and would have done him 
to death had not the uproar reached the adjacent barracks 
of Fort Antonia, and the commander, Claudius Lysias, 
promptly appeared on the scene with a detachment of soldiers. 

1 Cf. Append. I, p. 657. 

1 Cf. Jos. Ant. xix. vi. I. • Of. p. 190. 



ARREST AT JERUSALEM 473 

He rescued the Apostle from his murderous assailants, The 
and put him in charge of two soldiers who coupled him to re scue by 
themselves by a chain on either wrist ; and then he inquired Lys^ 8 ius 
who he was and what he had done. The only answer was a 
confused and unintelligible clamour, and he ordered that the 
stunned prisoner should be conveyed within the Castle for 
examination. A suspicion had crossed his mind. Those 
were troublous days in Judaea. The Assassins, that extreme 
party of the Zealots sworn to undying enmity against the 
Roman tyranny, were active ; and recently there had been a 
wild outbreak under an Egyptian Jew who professed himself 
a prophet and played upon the fanaticism of the populace. 
It had been suppressed by the Procurator Felix, and the 
leader had escaped and disappeared. 1 And now the idea 
had occurred to Lysias that the Apostle might be that 
desperado and the deluded mob was taking its revenge. 

The Castle adjoined the Temple to the north, and it was His speech 

entered by a double stairway in the north-east angle of the J^ 6 

outer court. 2 On the way thither the crowd hustled the 

prisoner and his guards, shouting ' Away with him ! ' until 

on reaching the stair the soldiers had to carry him up the 

steps. Just at the doorway he accosted the commander for 

the first time and craved a word with him. ' Do you 

understand Greek ? ' was the surprised answer. ' Are you 

not the Egyptian ? ' ' No,' said the prisoner, ' I am a Jew 

of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no undistinguished city. 

Pray, permit me to talk to the people.' Lysias consented, 

and, taking his stand on the broad landing, Paul faced the 

tumultuous assemblage in the court beneath, and, with that 

characteristic gesture which Luke had remarked the first 

time he ever heard him in the Synagogue of Pisidian Antioch, 8 

raised his hand to bespeak attention. The tumult subsided, 

and he addressed the crowd in their Aramaic vernacular. It 

would be unintelligible to the Roman Lysias, and probably 

also to the Greek Luke who witnessed the scene from his place 

in the court ; but it was kindly in the ears of the Jewish 

fanatics and won their attention. 

The speech was a biographical narrative, designed to Hi s per- 
sonal 

1 Cf. Jos. Ant. xx. viii. 6 ; De Bell. Jud. n. xiii. 5. apologia. 

» Cf. De Bell. Jud. v. y. 8. » a. p. 92. 



474 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

justify the Apostle's attitude toward the Jewish Faith. 
He styled his hearers, with all honour, after the Jewish 
fashion, ' brothers and fathers,' thus claiming kinship with 
them ; and he told them of his Jewish birth at Tarsus, his 
education in their own College under the celebrated Rabbi 
Gamaliel, and how he had once been as zealous for the Law 
as any of them and a ruthless persecutor of the followers of 
Jesus. And then he told them how he had been converted 
on the road to Damascus by a vision of Jesus, Risen and 
Glorified ; and how, thirteen years later, 1 there in the court 
of the Temple the Lord had again appeared to him and, 
sorely against his will, had imposed on him the office of 
preaching salvation to the Gentiles. 
Renewed Hitherto they had listened eagerly, but this mention of 
uproar. ^ Q en tij es infuriated them. - Away with such a fellow 
from the earth ! ' they shouted, and struggled and gesticu- 
lated till the very air was thick with the dust they raised. 
Sentence of The uproar discomposed Lysias. He was responsible for 
scourging, ^g maintenance of order in the city, and in the hope of 
pacifying the mob he adopted an illegal course : he ordered 
that the prisoner should be scourged until he confessed his 
crime. The illegality was twofold. It was only when a 
prisoner had refused, in the course of examination, to state 
the truth that resort was had to torture ; and Paul had not 
refused ; he had not even been put upon his trial. More- 
over, he was, though Lysias was unaware of this, a Roman 
citizen, and to inflict the ignominy of the scourge on the 
sacred person of a Roman was sacrilege. 2 
His pro- The soldiers were binding him to the whipping-post when 
test he said to the centurion in charge : ' Have you the right to 

scourge a man who is a Roman and has had not trial ? ' 
The protest was effective. The centurion turned to Lysias. 
' What are you going to do ? ' he asked. ' This man is a 
Roman.' Lysias was aghast. He stepped over to the 
prisoner. ' Tell me/ he said, ' are you a Roman ? ' ' Yes ' 
was the answer. It seemed incredible. It was indeed 
common for a rich provincial to purchase that precious 
privilege, 3 and it was thus that Lysias had obtained it ; but 
Paul was only a poor Jew. ' For a large sum/ exclaimed 

* a. p. 76- * Cf. p. 20. • JHcU 



ARREST AT JERUSALEM 475 

the officer, ' I gained this citizenship.' ' But 1/ was the 
proud rejoinder, ' am a Roman born/ 

Lysias would have been glad if, like the magistrates of Arraign- 
Philippi in a similar embarrassment, he could have dismissed J^ e f "J e the 
the prisoner with an apology ; but Jerusalem was not Sanhedrin 
Philippi, and he durst not provoke the resentment of the cf. Ac. 
turbulent Jews. The best he could do was to secure him a xvL 35 " 39 ' 
fair trial. Since Paul was a Jew, he was under the juris- 
diction of the Jewish tribunal, and so the commander 
required the Sanhedrin to meet on the following day. The 
august court assembled in due course in the Hall of Hewn 
Stone under the presidency of the High Priest Ananias ; and 
Lysias, evidently apprehending violence, conducted the 
prisoner thither from the Castle under a military escort. 
On his own account he hoped for an amicable issue in view 
of the illegality which he had perpetrated ; and it appears, 
moreover, that he was well disposed to the Apostle and 
desired his acquittal. 

Paul's attitude too is remarkable. He had plainly aban- His stout 
doned all expectation of justice at the hands of the Jews ; and beann g- 
it seems as though he had regretted his attempt to conciliate 
their prejudices by assuming the Nazirite vow and had deter- 
mined to have done with compromises. Probably also, as 
St. Chrysostom suggests, he reckoned that a resolute bearing 
would impress the commander and stiffen his resolution to 
see justice done. 

At all events he faced the Sanhedrin fearlessly and indeed Rencontre 
cavalierly. Instead of meekly awaiting examination he High 
immediately entered a protest. ' Brothers/ he said abruptly Pnest - 
—not ' Rulers of the people and Elders of Israel/ which was cf. Ac iv. 
the customary formula in addressing the supreme court — 8 ' 
' I have with a perfectly good conscience been a citizen of Cf. Eph. a, 
the Commonwealth of God to this day/ It was an assertion ^.'iii. aa" 
of his loyalty to the Jewish Faith, and it so angered the High cf. 2 Cor. 
Priest that he ordered his attendants to silence the audacious * ! ' 3 2 ^ : Mt 
prisoner by smiting him on the mouth. It was the grossest 
of insults, a piece of sheer ruffianism perpetrated by a 
minister of justice ; and the Apostle's indignation blazed 
up. ' God will smite you/ he cried, ' you whited wall ! l 

1 A proverbial phrase. Cf. Mt. xxiii. Vf, 



476 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

And sit you there as my legal judge, and illegally bid me 
be smitten ? ' The tyrant's minions were horrified, and 
exclaimed against such language to ' God's High Priest ' ; but 
their reproof merely exposed Ananias to a sharper thrust. Paul 
looked round the court. ' I knew not, brothers,' he said, 
Ex. xxii. ' that he was High Priest, for it is written : " Thou shalt not 
speak ill of a ruler of thy people." ' It was no apology but a 
biting sarcasm : ' Certainly the High Priest should be 
reverenced, but who could have supposed that this ruffian 
was a High Priest ? ' * 

It was indeed a dramatic episode, and the natural heart 
applauds the Apostle's brave defiance ; yet perhaps he 
would bethink himself by and by in calmer mood that there 
cf. jo. was a nobler way. His Lord had once stood like him before 
xvm. iia, ^ e jjjgk priest and been subjected to the self-same con- 
tumely ; and His only answer had been a gentle remon- 
strance. ' Where,' asks St. Jerome, 2 ' is that patience of the 
Saviour, who, " led as a lamb to the slaughter, opened not 
His mouth," but spoke gently to the smiter : " If I have 
spoken ill, testify of the ill ; but if well, why do you strike 
Me ? " We do not detract from the Apostle but we proclaim 
the glory of the Lord who, when He suffered in the flesh, 
rose superior to the injury and weakness of the flesh.' 
Embroil- It was clear to Paul that he would receive no justice in the 
sadducees Sanhedrin, and he resorted to an adroit stratagem. The 
and Phari- CO urt was composed of representatives of the rival parties 
of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, who were sharply 
divided on the question of Immortality. 3 Here lay his 
cf.xxyi. 5 ; opportunity. He was himself a Pharisee by birth and 
'* 5 ' education, and amid the excitement which ensued upon his 
defiance of the Sadducean President, he appealed to the 
partisan sympathies of the Pharisaic members. ' Brothers/ 

1 This interpretation was common in Chrysostonrs day {rivh fikv otv tpaalv '6n 
tlBus dpwvevcTai) ; but his own view is that Paul spoke seriously : he really did 
not know that it was the High Priest, since he had been long absent from 
Jerusalem and was unacquainted with Ananias, and, moreover, in the thronged 
court he would not distinguish the speaker. But the High Priest was unmistak- 
able. He occupied the presidential seat in the middle of the semicircle of 
Sanhed lists, and the prisoner stood before him during the trial. 

* Dial. adv. Pelag. in. 

* The Days of His Flesh, p. 43. 



ARREST AT JERUSALEM 477 

he cried, ' I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee : it is on 
the question of hope for the dead and their resurrection that 
I am being judged.' The ruse succeeded. The Scribes, the 
leaders of the Pharisaic party, immediately espoused his 
cause and asserted his innocence. And so fierce grew the 
quarrel that he was in danger of being torn limb from limb, 
until Lysias interfered and had him conveyed to the Castle. 

There he passed a troubled night. He could have little The 
satisfaction in reviewing the day's proceedings or indeed che Jls&v* 5 
part which he had played ever since his arrival in Jerusalem. ln s s - 
His initial blunder had been his acquiescence in the politic 
proposal of the Presbytery. This involved indeed no com- 
promise of principle, but it was alien from the spirit of 
1 simplicity toward Christ.' Once before, when he had 
circumcised Timothy in deference to Jewish prejudice, he 
had resorted to diplomacy, only to discover its unprofit- 
ableness ; and now again he had essayed it, and it had failed 2Cor. xi.3. 
him disastrously. It was perhaps his chagrin that prompted 
him to assume so defiant an attitude before the Sanhedrin, 
forgetful of ' the meekness and sweet reasonableness of 
Christ.' This also had proved futile ; and then in his 
desperation he had resorted to an ignoble trick, enkindling 
the mutual animosity of his enemies, and it was only the a Cor. x. 1. 
intervention of Lysias that had extricated him from his 
embarrassment. 

His situation was indeed disquieting, and it was largely His re&s- 
his own creation. It seemed as though there were no escape, surance - 
but in that dark hour he was visited by a thought which he 
hailed as a divine assurance. His long-cherished dream 
that he would crown his ministry by testifying for Christ 
in the Imperial Capital had become a settled conviction. 
That was, to his mind, God's indubitable purpose ; and, 
dark as was his immediate prospect, the cloud would lift. 
He would not perish in Jerusalem but would live to preach at 
Rome. 

His faith was justified by the event, and already God a plot 
was working out His providential design. The Apostle's assassina- 
escape from the Sanhedrin had been an exasperating dis- tlon * 
appointment to the Jewish rabble ; and next morning a 
company of over forty desperadoes mustered and swore that 



4 ?8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



turn, 



they would have his life. They waited upon the rulers of 
both parties, and unfolded their plot. It was that a requisi- 
tion be addressed to Lysias in name of the Sanhedrin, 
desiring him to bring the prisoner once more before the 
court, on the pretext of instituting a stricter examination ; 
and they undertook to assassinate him on the way from the 
Castle, though it should cost them their own lives. 1 The 
Sadducees and the Pharisees had so far composed their 
dissension of the previous day that they were now agreed 
in desiring the Apostle's life ; and the plot was sanctioned, 
its frustra- Happily, however, it was frustrated. A nephew of Paul, 
his sister's son, was resident in Jerusalem, and he dis- 
covered what was a-foot. Evidently he was not a Christian 
but a Jew ; and it may be that, like his uncle once, he was a 
student in the Rabbinical College. At all events, he had 
access to the inner circle of the Jews and got wind of the 
plot. Like the rest of Paul's relatives, 2 he regarded him as a 
traitor to the ancestral Faith, but natural affection triumphed 
over religious animosity, and, repairing to the Castle, he 
obtained an interview with the prisoner and told him the 
tidings. Paul desired one of his guards to conduct the lad to 
the commander ; and it is an evidence of the latter's good- 
will toward his prisoner that, when he learned that the business 
concerned Paul, his interest was at once engaged, and he 
grasped the lad's hand and drew him aside and heard his story. 
He took prompt and effective measures not merely to 
circumvent the conspiracy, but to remove the prisoner from 
his perilous situation. Since the case had assumed so 
serious an aspect, he would refer it to the Roman Procurator 
and have Paul conveyed to Caesarea, where the Procurator 
had his seat. He enjoined the lad to keep silence and, 
summoning two trustworthy centurions, instructed them to 
provide a strong escort of seventy horsemen and two hundred 
guardsmen, with asses for the prisoner and his attendant 
Luke. 3 And he wrote a letter to the Procurator, informing 

1 In xxiii. 15 several authorities have avekeiv avrov, iav dey nod airodaveiv, 'to 
kill him even if we must die for it.' * Cf. p. 61. 

8 The text in vers. 23, 24 is uncertain and confused, and it is simplified by 
(1) omitting 5i.a.Koaiovs after crrpartwras with several minuses., and (2) either 
omitting icai before i7T7reis (Fl.) or taking it as epexeg., 'even' (cf. Gal. vi. 16). 
arpariuTas is then the entire force, and ivn-eh and de£io\df3Qv$ its constituents. 



Reference 
to the 
Pro- 
curator. 



ARREST AT JERUSALEM 479 

him of the circumstances. He suppressed his own initial 
error in sentencing a Roman citizen to the scourge, and 
merely told how Paul had been mishandled by the mob, and 
in the course of his examination before the Sanhedrin all 
that had been laid to his charge was some offence against 
the Jewish religion. He had committed no crime, but it 
had transpired that a plot was on foot against his life ; and 
so Lysias was sending him to the Procurator and bidding his 
accusers prosecute their grievance at Csesarea. 

The danger was that, if the conspirators discovered that convey- 
the Apostle was being conveyed from Jerusalem, they might Apostle to 
attempt a surprise en route ; and so the departure was Caesarea - 
delayed until nightfall. At nine o'clock the troop set forth 
and marched under cover of the darkness as far as Antipatris, 
a distance of over thirty miles. Once beyond Judaea there 
was no need of apprehension ; and from Antipatris the 
guardsmen marched back to Jerusalem, while the horsemen 
rode forward apace to Caesarea and delivered the letter and 
handed over the prisoner to the Procurator at the Praetorium, 
his official residence, formerly the palace of King Herod the 
Great. And thus, after an absence of only nine days, the 
Apostle found himself back in Caesarea, 



Ac. xxiv- 

xxvi. 



IMPRISONMENT AT C^SAREA 



The Pro- The Procurator at that time was Antonius Felix. 1 He had 
FeHx? r held office since the year 52, 2 and these had been sorrowful 
days in Judaea. He was a freedman of Antonia, mother of 
Claudius, and a brother of Pallas, the Emperor's notorious 
favourite. He was the first freedman who had ever held a pro- 
curatorship, and he owed his appointment to his brother's 
influence. The taint of his base origin clung to him through- 
out his career ; and, as the historian Tacitus expresses it in 
his epigrammatic fashion, he ' exercised the prerogative of a 
king, with all cruelty and lust, in the spirit of a slave.' 
His evil Cruelty and lust — these were indeed the vices which 
tration, darkened his Judsean administration. He exhibited the 
latter in his matrimonial relations. He was thrice married, 
and each of his wives, it is said, 3 was a princess. The first 
is unknown, but the second was a grand-daughter of Mark 
Antony and Cleopatra, and the third the Jewish princess 
Drusilla, daughter of Agrippa 1 and sister of Agrippa 11. 
Shortly after his accession to office, though she was already 
married to Azizus, King of Emesa, he was captivated by her 
beauty and persuaded her to forsake her husband and ally 
herself with him. Of his cruelty that insurrection under the 
Egyptian Jew constitutes one of many instances. It was 
provoked by his tyranny, and he repressed it with sanguinary 
ferocity. Such tragedies were frequent during his malign 
administration. It was a veritable reign of terror, and it 
ended in his recall by Nero in the year 59. 
Hisrecep- Such was the man who now controlled the Apostle's 
destinj'. And indeed it was better in his hands ; for, with 



tion of the 
prisoner 



1 Cf. Tac. Ann. xn. 54 ; Hist. v. 9. Jos. Ant. XX. viii. 5, 6 j De Bill. JudL 
II. xiii. 2-6. 

J Cf. Schlirer, 1. ii. p. 174. 
• Suet. Claud. 28 : ' trium reginarum maritum.' 
480 



IMPRISONMENT AT CjESAREA 481 

all his faults, Felix was a Roman magistrate, and under his 
administration Paul was sheltered by the strong bulwark 
of Roman law. On reading the letter of Lysias he merely 
inquired of the prisoner what province he belonged to, and 
then informed him that he would be brought to trial as soon 
as his accusers presented themselves, and therewith dis- 
missed him to a cell. 

Meanwhile the implacable Jews were not idle. The Represen- 
Sanhedrin appointed a deputation consisting of the High ^{h? 
Priest iVnanias to represent the Sadducees and several Elders sanhediin. 
to represent the Pharisees, and associated with them a Jewish 
lawyer named Tertullus to submit the case before the 
Roman tribunal. These preparations and especially the 
instruction of Tertullus required time, and Paul had lain 
five days in prison ere the prosecutors appeared at Csesarea. 

The trial opened with a speech by Tertullus. Though a The indict- 
Jew and the spokesman of the Sanhedrin, he began with n 
fulsome and servile adulation of the tyrant. Then he 
proceeded to the indictment, and laid three distinct charges : 
treason, heresy, and sacrilege. Paul, it was averred, went 
about exciting insurrection among the Jews throughout the 
Empire ; he was a ringleader of ' the sect of the Nazarenes,' 
as the Jews contemptuously designated the Christians ; and 
he had attempted to desecrate the Temple at Jerusalem. 
The deputies corroborated the indictment ; and then the 
Procurator nodded to the Apostle, and the latter replied. 

His defence was prefaced by no flattering exordium, nor The 
would the omission impair its effectiveness, since Felix defence? 
would duly appreciate the hollow sycophancy of the Jewish 
delegates. He simply expressed the satisfaction which he 
sincerely felt in pleading his cause before one who after five 
years' experience was accurately acquainted with Jewish 
questions ; and then he proceeded to deal with the indict- 
ment. As for the charge of sedition-mongering, it was 
palpably absurd. It was only twelve days since he had 
entered Jerusalem ; * and what was the record of the six 
days which he had spent there ? He had never harangued 
the people either in the Tempie-court or in the Synagogue 
or in the street. It was indeed true that he was a Christian, 

1 Append. I, p. 657. 
2 H 



482 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

but that involved no disloyalty to his ancestral Faith, 
On the contrary, he held by the Scriptures and cherished 
the hope of the Resurrection, which his accusers, at all 
events the Pharisees, themselves avowed. His loyalty to the 
Faith was as unimpeachable as theirs, and it was attested by 
the errand which, after years of absence, had brought him to 
Jerusalem. He had come on a mission of charity, conveying 
alms for the poor Jews ; and when the cry of desecration 
was raised against him by some Asian Jews in the Temple- 
court, he was actually engaged in the discharge of a legal 
vow. And in his trial before the Sanhedrin he had been 
convicted of no wrong. His solitary offence, as he now 
frankly confessed, was his impulsive provocation of the 
mutual antagonism of his judges. 
Adjourn- Felix knew enough of the sentiment of his province to 
the case, recognise that the Jews were actuated merely by their 
notorious hostility to the harmless sect of the Christians, 
He should have dismissed the Apostle forthwith ; but 
experience had rendered him suspicious of seditious designs, 
and he determined to adjourn the case and detain the prisoner 
in custody until he had an opportunity of conferring with 
Lysias. Evidently, like all the Roman officials who had to 
do with Paul, he was attracted to him ; and he directed 
that, instead of being remanded to his cell, he should be 
granted the indulgence of libera custodia, enjoying superior 
fare and the society and ministration of such friends as might 
choose to visit him. 
Paul's in- The case had naturally a peculiar interest for the lady 
with Felix Brasilia. 1 She was herself a Jewess, and she was curious to 
?? d ... see this Tew who had created so much stir and hear some- 

Drusnla. u 

thing of his novel doctrine from his own lips. To gratify 
her the Apostle was summoned into the presence of the sinful 
pair, and he faced them undismayed. He first proclaimed 
his Gospel of Faith in Christ Jesus, and then, after the fashion 
of a Hebrew prophet, he spoke home to their consciences, 
discoursing of ' righteousness, self-control, and the future 
judgment.' The Procurator's guilty soul quailed and 
shuddered. It was the first time, perhaps, that he had ever 

1 xxiv. 24 Syr p m s : ' she asked to see Paul and to hear his word. Therefore, 
wishing to content her, he sent for Paul.' 



IMPRISONMENT AT CALSAREA 483 

been so confronted by his sin, and it might have proved the 
turning-point in his career ; but he stifled the divine impulse. 
■ For the present,' he said, ' go, and when I get an opportunity, 
I shall summon you.' 

And he did summon the Apostle again, but in the meantime His pro- 
he had hardened his heart. He shared that lust for gold detention, 
which so often disgraced the imperial administration of the 
provinces ; and he had conceived the idea of extorting a 
bribe from the prisoner as the price of his release. It was 
indeed no unreasonable expectation ; for not only was Paul 
liberally befriended in his captivity by the Christians of 
Caesarea but it would seem that he had brought with him 
some little store of money. It is likely that he had been 
well provided by the penitent Corinthians on his departure 
from their midst. At all events he had the means of hiring 
the vessel which conveyed him and his company from Troas 
to Patara and also for defrayii^ the Temple-charges of the 
four Nazirites on his arrival at Jerusalem. It was indeed cf. pwu 
no large store, and it soon dwindled away ; but it was lv ' IO " 2 °' 
sufficient to excite the Procurator's cupidity, and he detained 
the prisoner and frequently summoned him into his presence 
and conferred with him. 

Thus vexatiously the days passed and lengthened into His em- 
months until two years had elapsed. It was a weary time, poyraents * 
and the heart of the Apostle, daily expectant of release and 
daily disappointed, must have sickened with hope deferred. 
And his ardent spirit must have fretted at his enforced 
inactivity. That long space is a blank in the narrative of 
his ministry. There is no extant letter which he wrote from 
Caesarea ; nor is it recorded that he won a single convert in 
the garrison of the Praetorium. Yet it is incredible that the 
two years should have passed idly. He would fain indeed 
have been prosecuting his mission and achieving his cherished 
dream of visiting Rome and carrying the Gospel to the cf. Rom. 
western limit of Europe ; but he would not neglect the lesser x 23, 24 ' 
employments which lay to his hand. He would be mindful cf. 2 Cor. 
of his Churches ; and, though none have survived, he would x 
write many a letter of counsel and encouragement. Luke 
was with him to serve as his amanuensis ; nor would there be 
lacking among the friends who visited him at the Praetorium, 



484 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Cf. xxvi. 

24. 



Accession 
of Festus. 



Resump- 
of the 



case. 



willing hands to perform this and kindred offices on his 
behalf. And he would be very busy with the Holy Scriptures, 
searching them and meditating on them and finding in them 
ever fresh testimonies to the Gospel of salvation in Christ 
Jesus. In truth his chamber would be no prison but a 
study, a school of Christ, an house of praj^er. 

It was in the year 59 that his captivity ended. 1 Felix 
was recalled from the Procuratorship of Judaea, and Porcius 
Festus was appointed in his room. 2 It would have been 
well for the departing tyrant to dismiss the prisoner and 
thus cover up the wrong he had done by detaining him in the 
hope of gaining a bribe ; but that might have involved him 
in a worse embarrassment. The Jews were bitter against 
him for his many cruelties, and it would have intensified 
their exasperation had he released their victim. And so of 
the two risks he preferred the lesser, and in the hope of 
conciliating the Jews he left the Apostle still a prisoner. 

It appears from the little that is recorded of him that 
Festus was a prudent and honourable man, and in happier 
circumstances he might have proved a successful ruler. But 
he was charged with an impossible task. His province, 
always a seething hotbed of bigotry, faction, and intrigue, 
had been inflamed by his predecessor's maladministration, 
and within two years he died of despair. On his accession, 
however, he faced the ordeal hopefully, in the fond belief 
that justice and generosity would prevail. Caesarea was his 
seat of government, but Jerusalem was the Sacred Capital ; 
and, anxious to demonstrate his friendliness toward his 
tumultuous subjects, he betook himself thither three days 
after his accession. Immediately he found himself involved 
in a characteristic web of intrigue. The Jewish authorities 
were as bitter as ever against Paul, and they begged that 
the Procurator would have the prisoner conveyed to Jerusalem 
and forthwith pass sentence on him. Their design was to 
execute the plot which had been baulked two years pre- 
viously and have him assassinated in the course of the 
journey ; and perhaps they had their gang still in readiness 
despite the oath of the ruffians that they would neither eat 

1 Cf. Append. I. 

8 Cf. Jos. Ant. xx. viii. 9-11 ; De Bell. Jud. II. xiv. I. 



IMPRISONMENT AT C/ESAREA 485 

nor drink until they had killed Paul, for absolution from 
such a vow was easily obtained. 1 Festus was shrewd enough 
to suspect a sinister purpose, and he courteously refused 
their request on the ground that there was no time. He 
must return to Caesarea in little over a week ; but they might 
send thither with him a deputation to prosecute the case, 
and he would dispose of it without delay. 

They agreed, and a deputation accompanied him to Appeal to 
Caesarea. The day after their arrival the trial was instituted. 
The Apostle was arraigned on the old charges of heresy, cf. xxv. . 
sacrilege, and treason, and he repudiated them. The 
question could be decided only by taking evidence ; and 
Festus, a stranger to Jewish institutions and customs, 
recognised his incompetence to deal with it. It was a ques- 
tion for a Jewish court ; and, anxious to win the confidence 
of the Jewish rulers and at the same time do justice to the 
prisoner, he suggested that the case should be referred to 
the Sanhedrin, with himself as assessor. It seemed to him 
a reasonable proposal ; and indeed it would have been the 
best possible procedure had the Sanhedrin been an impartial 
tribunal. He did not know its actual disposition, but Paul 
knew it. He remembered how he had fared in the Hall of 
Hewn Stone in the time of Felix, and he would not consent 
to a repetition of the outrage. He was entitled to a fair 
trial ; and since he had no chance of obtaining it under a 
Procurator ignorant of the Jewish machinations, he claimed 
a privilege which was his hereditary prerogative. He was 
a Roman citizen ; and it was the right of a Roman citizen, 
if he were dissatisfied with the procedure of a subordinate 
tribunal, to enter his protest and appeal to the Emperor's 
judgment. Paul availed himself of his privilege : ' I appeal 
to Caesar/ 

It was an unexpected denouement, and it unpleasantly Sanctioned 
surprised the Procurator. The challenging of his first PrJ^ura- 
administrative act would prejudice him in the eyes of the tor - 

1 Cf . Hieros. Abod. Zar. xl. I : ' For one who has vowed that he will abstain 
from food, woe if he eat, woe if. he do not eat. If he eat, he sins against his 
vow ; if he do not eat, he sins against his life. What must he do here ? Let 
him go to the wise, and they will absolve him from his vow, as it is written : 
" The tongue of the wise is health" (Prov. xii. 18).' 



4 86 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

imperial government ; and in the hope of averting this 
embarrassment he turned to his assessors * and held a hasty 
consultation with them. It did not lie with a magistrate 
to refuse an appeal to the Emperor ; and the only question 
was whether the appeal was valid. Apparently it was the 
first intimation Festus had received that Paul was a Roman 
citizen ; and once he was assured of it, he could do nothing 
but allow the appeal : ' You have appealed to Caesar ; to 
Caesar you will go.' 
state-visit It only remained for Festus to despatch the prisoner to 
and gnppa * ne Imperial Capital ; but certain preliminaries were 
Bemice. necessary, particularly the preparation of an official report 
' for submission to the Emperor. And this was a difficult task 
for the Procurator, ignorant as he was alike of previous 
proceedings and of the true issues. His perplexity, however, 
was presently resolved. His main reason for abridging his 
sojourn at Jerusalem had been that he expected a state- visit 
from his neighbour, King Herod Agrippa II. 2 This potentate 
Cf. xii. i- was the son of Herod Agrippa I who figures at an earlier 
3 " I9 ~ 23 ' stage in the history of the Book of Acts. He was a great- 
grandson of King Herod the Great, the tyrant of Judaea 
in the days when our Lord was born at Bethlehem, and a 
brother of Drusilla, the sinful spouse of Felix. On the death 
cr. Lk. iu. of Herod the Great his kingdom had been apportioned 
between his three sons, who ruled under the title of tetrarchs ; 
but in the year 37 a.d. the Emperor Caligula restored the 
regal title to his grandson, who thenceforth ruled as King 
Herod Agrippa 1 over the tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias, 
comprising Batanaea, Trachonitis, Gaulanitis, and Abilene. 
His son, Herod Agrippa 11, inherited his dominion, and 
Nero added to it a large part of Galilee and Peraea. He was 
a mere puppet, reigning by grace of the Emperor and 
deferring to his master with servile submissiveness. His 
character was weak and indolent, and he was freely charged 
with the vilest of moral infamy. His widowed sister Bernice 
resided with him in his palace at Caesarea Philippi, and they 
were credited with the maintenance of incestuous intercourse. 8 

1 Cf. Schlirer, Jewish People, I. ii. p. 60. 

* Cf. Jos. Ant. XIX. ix-XX. ix. 

* Cf. Jos. Ant. XX. vii. 3 ; Juv. VI. 1 56-60. 






IMPRISONMENT AT C^ESAREA 487 

Nevertheless — such moral mixtures will the human heart 
contain — he was an ardent devotee of the Jewish religion. 
And Bernice shared his devotion ; at all events, it is recorded 
of her that she once assumed the Nazirite vow. 1 

In due course Agrippa and Bernice arrived with their Agnppa|s 
retinue. Their errand was to greet the new Procurator. Paui? s 
It was a state function, and the city was en fete. It was an 
opportunity for Festus to ingratiate himself with his subjects ; 
and he made the most of it, receiving the native prince with 
courteous observance and inviting representatives from all 
parts of the province. 2 The visit extended over a good many 
days, and in the course of it he took occasion to confer with 
Agrippa on the perplexing case which his predecessor had 
bequeathed to him. He narrated the circumstances, and 
Agrippa's interest was aroused. He had heard of Paul, 
and had been wishing to hear him. Festus grasped at the 
hint. ' To-morrow/ he said, ' you will hear him.' Agrippa 
was a Jew, and it would clarify the situation if he conducted 
an examination of the prisoner in the Procurator's presence. 

Next day the royal party, with all the glitter of military Paul's 
and civic pomp, was ushered into the audience-hall of the aSS be- 
Praetorium. The prisoner was introduced, and after a forehim - 
statement of the case by Festus the King granted him per- 
mission to speak. He began with his characteristic gesture 
and, addressing Agrippa, avowed his satisfaction in laying 
his defence before one so intimately versed in Jewish affairs. 

His defence was a personal narrative. His antecedents, His state- 
he claimed, were notorious, especially the fact that at the n 
outset of his career he had been a Pharisee of the strictest 
order. Nor had he since proved recreant. The historic 
faith of Israel was the hope of the Messiah's Advent and the 
Resurrection of the Dead ; and it was for his advocacy of this 
hope that he was arraigned. One difference indeed there 
was. He had seen that hope's fulfilment ; he had recognised 
in Jesus of Nazareth the Promised Saviour. And he pro- 
ceeded to show how he had attained that momentous assur- 
ance. It had been forced upon him. The name of Jesus 

1 Cf. Jos. De Bell Jud. 11. xv. I. 

2 In xxv. 23 SyrP m s mentions, with the military officers and magnates of 
Cassarea, 'those who had come down from the province.' 



488 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



The Pro- 
curator's 
astonish- 
ment. 



Appeal to 
Agrippa. 



had at first been abhorrent to him ; and by authority of 
the Sanhedrin he had instituted a ruthless persecution of 
His followers. He had harried them in Jerusalem and 
pursued them to the neighbouring cities ; and it was at the 
very height of his fury that he had been arrested. He was 
on the way to Damascus, urging the pursuit, when he had 
an awful vision of Jesus, risen and glorified, and received 
from His lips the commission to proclaim His salvation to 
Jews and Gentiles. From that hour he had obeyed the 
heavenly vision ; and that was the reason why the Jews 
had arrested him. He was no heretic. His Gospel of a 
Suffering Messiah, whose Resurrection had illumined the 
darkness for Jew and Gentile, was no novel invention ; it 
had been foreshadowed by the Prophets and Moses. 

It is merely a summary that the historian has furnished of 
the Apostle's defence ; but even so it is a moving argument, 
and what would be its effect upon the audience beholding his 
rapt look and thrilled by his impassioned tones as the 
torrent of eloquence poured from his lips ? It was the 
first that Festus had ever heard of the miracle of Christian 
faith, and it amazed him. He was a shrewd, practical, 
unimaginative Roman, and the idea crossed his mind that 
the nervous, studious prisoner, whose cell was littered with 
volumes, was a crazed idealist. As he listened, he forgot 
his surroundings ; and when the flood of eloquence ceased, 
he cried out : ' You are mad, Paul ! Your great learning 
is turning you mad.' * ' No/ answered the Apostle, ' I am 
not mad, Festus your Excellency. They are words of truth 
and sanity that I am uttering.' 

And then he appealed to Agrippa. The facts which he 
had stated were notorious. They were familiar to every 
Jew, and Agrippa, being a Jew, was aware of them. ' King 
Agrippa,' he said, ' do you believe the Prophets ? I know 
that you do.' Agrippa perceived his intention. He was 
about to clinch the argument and drive it home : You 
admit that my Gospel is approved by the Scriptures ? Then, 
as a faithful Jew, you must accept it.' It was an embar- 
rassing predicament for the King. He was indeed impressed, 
but he must at all hazards maintain his submission to the 

1 Like the minister of St. Ronan's, 'just dung donnart wi' learning.' 



IMPRISONMENT AT CVESAREA 489 

imperial government, and he durst not commit himself in 
presence of the Procurator after the latter's unflattering 
pronouncement. He writhed and feebly protested against 
thus being driven into a corner : ' You are for persuading me 
by a short argument to become a Christian.' * ' Would to 
God,' was the reply, ' that, by a short argument or a long 
one, not only you but all my hearers to-day became such 
as I am, apart from these bonds ! ' 

This ended the proceedings. The great personages and The 
their train withdrew and discussed the case. They agreed p r ^ stle 
that the prisoner was guilty of no crime ; and Agrippa's pounced 
verdict was that he might have been released if he had not 
appealed to the Emperor. 

1 iv dMyy fie ireWeis (NBEHLP) Xpurnavbu yepfodai. (EHLP, Vulg.). The 
only question here regards the meaning of h oKlyy. A.V. renders 'almost,' 
making Agrippa confess himself on the verge of conversion. But ' almost ' 
(propemodum) would be 6\lyov or Trap' 6\lyov. iv SXiycp can only mean either 
(i) 'in brief,' 'by a short argument,' sc. \6yy (cf. Eph. iii. 3), or (2) 'in a short 
time,' sc. XP& V V (cf. Plat. Apol. 22 b). In the latter sense it would be a sneer : 
' It will take you longer than you imagine to persuade me to turn Christian.' For 
yevtaOai NAB read iroirjcrai. This could only mean ' in a little ' (whether ' in a 
short time' or 'by a short argument') 'you are persuading me, so as to make me 
a Christian,' which R.V., with questionable legitimacy, paraphrases 'with but 
little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian.' If Troi7J<xac be accepted, 
it is then necessary to read rreidrj (A) for ire'idtis, ' you are confident of making 
me a Christian ' ; but ytv&Oai is attested by its occurrence in Paul's echo of 
Agrippa's words (ver. 29). 



Ac. xxvii- 
xxviii. 15. 



THE VOYAGE TO ROME 



The It was now the close of July 59, 1 and nothing remained but 

despatched to despatch the Apostle to Rome. Several other prisoners 
to Rome. we re to be transported with him, probably condemned 
criminals destined to play their part as bestiarii, righting 
with wild beasts in the circus for the entertainment of the 
populace ; 2 and they were consigned to a military guard, 
a detachment of the Augustan or Imperial Cohort. This 
was a corps attached to each provincial legion and charged, 
like the Frumentarii at a later date, with the duty of com- 
municating between the Emperor and his forces abroad, 
especially in the way of conveying despatches and escorting 
prisoners. They were known at Rome as the Peregrini or 
' soldiers from abroad/ and during their visits to the Capital 
they were quartered in the Castra Peregrinorum on the 
CgeUan Hill adjacent to the imperial residence on the 
Palatine. 3 A ship belonging to the Mysian port of Adra- 
myttium was in the harbour of Csesarea, preparing to set 
sail on a trading voyage along the coast of the Province 
of Asia ; and the intention apparently was that she should 
convey the prisoners and their escort to the busy port of 
Ephesus, where they would be likely to find a ship bound for 
Rome ; or, failing this, they might proceed with her to 
Adramyttium, whence they would sail to Neapolis and 
march by the Egnatian Road to Dyrrachium. 
Attended It would have been a distressing experience for the 
andArist- Apostle had he been obliged, during the long voyage, to herd 



archus. 



1 Cf. Append. I. * Cf. note on I Cor. iv. 9, p. 254, 

* Cf. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 315, 348. The aire'ipa Ze/Scwtjj i& 
otherwise explained as a cohort of Sebastenes, originally levied under Herod the 
Great at Sebaste or Samaria and now incorporated with the impeiial army (cf. 
Schtirer, Jewish People, I. ii. pp. 51 ff.). But the designation would then be 
airetpa XefSa^rrtvm'. 
490 



THE VOYAGE TO ROME 491 

with that gang of desperadoes ; but he was spared this 
ignominy. He would hardly have been subjected to it in 
any case, since he was no condemned criminal, but a Roman 
citizen going to plead his cause before the Emperor ; and it 
appears, moreover, that he enjoyed a certain distinction. 
He was accompanied by Luke and Aristarchus. 1 It seems 
strange that their presence should have been permitted, 
and the explanation is suggested by a story which Pliny 
tells 2 of Arria, the heroic wife of the Stoic Thrasea Partus. 
Her husband was being conveyed a prisoner from Illyricum 
to Rome, and at the embarkation she vainly entreated that 
she might accompany him. ' You will give a man of 
consular rank,' she pleaded, ' some attendants to serve his 
food, to attire him, to put on his sandals : I will singly 
perform every office.' Thus it appears that, though he 
might not take friends with him, a prisoner might have 
attendants ; and it was doubtless in this capacity that those 
two devoted followers accompanied the Apostle. His health 
was broken by all that he had recently undergone, and 
Luke would go with him as his physician and Aristarchus 
as his servant. Their attendance would lend him dignity 
and procure him exceptional consideration ; and from the 
outset he was courteously treated by Julius, the centurion 
in command of the convoy. 

It would be August ere the ship set sail. She had to call Course 
at Sidon, some seventy miles north of Cassarea, to complete to Myra 
her lading, and during her stay there Julius allowed Paul the 
privilege of going ashore and enjoying among the Christians 
of that great Phoenician city the attention which his infirmity 
required. 3 From Sidon their direct course lay west-north- 
west to the island of Rhodes, but at that season the wind 
in the Levant blows steadily from the west, and working 
to windward was impossible for an ancient ship with her 
single mast amidships and one huge square sail. And so 
she steered northward with the wind a-beam under the lee 
of Cyprus, until she fetched Cilicia ; and then, availing 

1 The historian's presence is indicated by the use of the first pers. pronoun 
' we ' throughout the narrative. a Epist. in. 16. 

* (Trifj^Xeia (xxvii. 3) is one of Luke's medical terms. Cf. Hobart, Med. Lang. 
of St. Luke, pp. 269 f . 



492 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

herself of the land-breezes and the current which there sets 
steadily westward, 1 crept along the southern coast of Asia 
Minor for fifteen days 2 until she gained the port of Myra 
in Cilicia. 
Tranship- There Julius had the good fortune, as he deemed it, to 
find a large ship hailing from Alexandria and bound for 
cf. xxvii. Italy with a cargo of corn, and he put his convoy on board 
of her. Egypt was the chief granary of the Empire, and 
the ships which conveyed to the Capital the immense 
supplies which its teeming populace required, were numerous 
and large. Lucian 8 has furnished a minute description of 
one named ' The Isis ' which was driven into the Piraeus by 
stress of weather, and which amazed the Athenians by her 
enormous dimensions. Her length was a hundred and 
eighty feet, her breadth forty-five, and the depth of her 
hold forty-three and a half. Her crew was like a camp, 
and her cargo, it was said, would have fed all Attica for a 
year. ' The Isis ' indeed was a marvel for size, and this ship 
would be smaller ; still she was a large vessel, and it is some 
indication of her dimensions that, when they were all on 
cf. xxvii. board, she carried, besides her cargo, a complement of 

two hundred and seventy-six. 
wind- From Myra the ship crept a hundred and forty miles 

Fair along the coast until she cleared it abreast of Cnidus and 

Havens. j os ^. ^ ^ Q f ^ e i an( j_b reeze and the current. Unable to 

cross the iEgean in face of the westerly wind she held south- 
ward to Crete, and, rounding Cape Salmone, the eastern 
extremity of the island, crept along the southern coast to 
Fair Havens, a bay still bearing the same name five or six 
miles to the east of Cape Matala and close to the town of 
Lasaea. 4 It was impossible meanwhile to proceed farther, 
since on passing Cape Matala the ship would be exposed to 
the westerly wind. She fretted at her moorings ' for a 
considerable time ' ; and at length, when the first week 
of October had passed, 5 the situation grew serious, since 
navigation was dangerous after the autumnal equinox and 

1 Cf. Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, pp. 68 f. 

* After SiairXeuvavTes (xxvii. 5) 112, 137, SyrP add dt' rj{j.epCiv foKdirevre, 
8 Navig. seu Vot. 

* Cf. Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck, Append. I. 5 Cf. Append. I 



THE VOYAGE TO ROME 493 

would be entirely suspended by the winter storms from 
November 11 to February 8. 1 

Accordingly a council was held, and Paul, as an experienced Departure 
traveller who had thrice been shipwrecked, was admitted to age*'" 1 
it. The owner of the ship and the sailing master were of Ph05nix - 
course present, but Julius, though a military officer, presided X \.*$. 
over the deliberations, since the ship was in the service of 
the imperial government. The Apostle perceived the 
danger of putting to sea, and strongly advised that they 
should remain at Fair Havens ; but the owner and the 
sailing master opposed him. Fair Havens was a poor 
harbour for wintering in, and they recommended shifting 
some fifty miles westward to Phoenix, the modern Lutro, 
a land-locked bay facing east and confronted by an island 
which formed a natural breakwater. 2 There the ship would 
have lain secure whatever wind might blow. 

It was a seamanlike course, and Julius naturally approved an.e. 
of it. And it seemed to justify his decision that the wind g 
opportunely veered round and blew gently from the south. 
If it held, the ship on rounding Cape Matala would have 
the breeze over- her port quarter, and would make Phcenix 
easily and swiftly. It occasioned, however, a preliminary 
difficulty that the Cape jutted southward, and it seemed 
doubtful whether the cumbrous craft could lie sufficiently 
close to the wind to weather it. She came perilously near 
the rocks, 3 and the life-boat had been lowered and was towing 
astern in case of need ; but she contrived to scrape past, 
and then eased off and steered W.N.W. across the Gulf of 
Messara. She had not proceeded far when a terrific tempest 
burst upon her. It was the Euraquilo, 4 a tearing nor'-easter, 

1 Cf. Append. I, p. 648. 

1 p\£irovTci Kara Xtpa /cat /cara x&pov (xxvii. 12), 'looking down the south-west 
wind and down the north-west wind,' in the directions towards which these winds 
blew, i.e. north-eastward and south-eastward. The island lay across the mouth 
of the bay, and thus there were — from the view-point of a ship at anchor within — 
two exits, one to the north-east and the other to the south-east. On weighing 
anchor and setting sail, she would run either ' down the south-west wind ' or 
'down the north-west wind.' * xxvii. 13 • Haraov irapeXeyovro ttju Kprirrjv. 

* evpaxvXav XAB*, ' north-east wind,' compounded of edpos, 'east wind, 5 and 
Lat. aquilo, 'north wind. 5 The variants evpoicXuBuv, 'east wind wave,' and 
cvpVKXtdw, 'broad wave,' are meaningless corruptions. Cf. €vp6voTos, 'south- 
east wind. ' 



494 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the dread of seamen in those parts ; and it smote the ship 
on the starboard side, and she had to pay off and drive before 
it. The strain of the huge sail was severe, and there was 
danger of the timbers starting and the ship foundering ; 
but fortunately there lay some thirty miles to leeward the 
ship islet of Clauda, and, running under its shelter, the crew were 
under the a ^le to make her snug. They brought her head to wind, 
ciauda anc * & * ^ e swamped small-boat on board ; then they 
' trapped ' the ship, passing cables under her keel and binding 
them round her hull to hold her together ; and finally they 
lowered the great sail with its heavy yard, and ' hove her to ' 
under a storm-sail. Their only other resource would have 
been to let her scud before the tempest under short canvas ; 
but this would have been rushing to destruction, since right 
to leeward, at a distance of between three and four hundred 
miles, lay the dreaded quicksands of the Syrtis off the 
African coast. The sole remedy therefore was to ' heave 
her to ' and ride out the gale. 
Driving It had caught her on the starboard side as she was crossing 

westward, ^ e Gulf of Messara, and it was on the starboard tack that 
she now lay heading it under Clauda. So situated, she kept 
drifting astern but always forging northward, and thus she 
was carried almost due westward. The sea grew ever 
wilder, and the leaky ship laboured heavily. There was 
imminent danger of her sinking under them ; and so next 
day the crew lightened her of all superfluous lumber, and 
the following day, by the united effort of all hands, " flung 
the gear ' overboard, probably the huge sail-yard with its 
cumbrous tackle. Thus relieved, she rode more easily, 
but her condition remained parlous. Her strained timbers 
were leaking badly, and at any moment she might settle 
down. The only hope lay in running her ashore somewhere ; 
but ever since the storm broke, the sky had been obscured 
by dense, black clouds and no reckoning could be taken. 
All hands were continually toiling at the pumps, and they 
had hardly tasted food ; for cooking was impossible, and 
their provisions were soaked. 
The In their extremity Paul came to the rescue one morning, 

good lles an d heartened his despairing comrades with a brave re- 
cheer, assurance. He reminded them that it was against his 



THE VOYAGE TO ROME 495 

judgment that they had quitted Fair Havens, and the event 
had justified his counsel. Nevertheless there was no reason 
for despair. During the past night his God had vouchsafed 
him a revelation. An angel had assured him that his life 
would be preserved and he would undergo his trial before 
the Emperor ; and they would all share his deliverance. The 
ship alone would perish : she would be cast on some island. 
In view of the Jewish manner of recognising the voice of God 
in His providential orderings * it is hardly reasonable to 
postulate here an actual angelophany. On board the storm- 
tossed ship as in his cell in the Castle at Jerusalem on the Cf. xxiii. 
night after the scene in the Sanhedrin, his visiting Rome x 
was an indubitable certainty in the Apostle's mind. It was 
ordained of God, and it must come to pass. Thus on that 
fearful night, as he considered his position, he was assured 
that he would not perish in the tempest. The ship was 
plainly doomed, but he would escape ; and if he escaped, his 
fellow-voyagers would escape too. 

Whether they believed his assurance or not, it would Land dis- 
appear that his prediction of the ship being cast on some c 
island was not lost on the crew. They kept a vigilant out- 
look, and on the fourteenth night of the frail vessel's desperate 
battle with wind and wave they detected land under their lee. 
They could not see it, for it was midnight ; but they heard 
the sullen boom of breakers, and perhaps, as they peered into 
the black darkness, they might descry the white spray 
dashing high. They took soundings, and found twenty 
fathoms ; and presently, sounding again, they found only 
fifteen. Plainly they were driving down on a rock-bound 
coast, and their only hope was that there might be some 
creek into which they could steer the ship and beach her. 
The dawn would disclose their situation, and meanwhile 
they must stay the vessel's drift, lest she should strike in 
the darkness. They accordingly lowered four anchors. Prepara- 
They lowered them from the stern, thus letting her swing bSdSng. 
round head to land in readiness for running ashore. The 
ancient steering-gear consisted of two large paddles pro- 
jecting from either quarter ; and now that the ship was 

1 Cf. p. 122. 



496 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

riding by the stern, they raised these and secured them 
with lashings. They would also lower the storm-sail which 
had hitherto kept her ' hove to ' ; and it seems that they 
also cut away the heavy mast. And thus they held on, 
eagerly expecting what the dawn would reveal. 
Crew's It was a distressful situation, since the wallowing ship 

abandon 10 might founder at her anchors. At any moment a heavy 
the ship. sea might break over her poop and engulf her. The seamen 
were alive to the danger, and, evidently with the connivance 
of their officers, they resolved to desert the ship and take to 
the life-boat on the chance of getting ashore. They lowered 
the boat on the pretext of putting out an anchor at the bow. 
It was a transparent trick, since an anchor at the bow would 
have been useless ; and Paul detected their base intention. 
He turned to Julius and told him that there was no chance 
Cf. xxvii. of escape unless the sailors stood by the ship to execute 
the difficult manoeuvre of beaching her ; and the soldiers 
promptly cut the boat's hawser and let her go adrift. 
Paul At that anxious crisis Paul was the one ' still, strong 

comrades, man/ and he realised the expediency of rallying his panic- 
stricken comrades and bracing them for the final ordeal. 
All those terrible days they had eaten little, and, as they 
crouched on the wave-swept deck, he counselled them to 
take some food. It would be their last meal on board the 
doomed ship, and there was no longer any necessity for 
sparing their scanty provision. And he set the example. 
He took a piece of bread, and after the Christian fashion 
which turned every common meal into a sacramental feast, 
cf. i Cor. ( gave thanks and broke it and ate.' The whole company 
joined with him, and their spirits rose. The sullen mariners 
resumed their duties. The less the ship's draught the 
higher would she drive on the beach and the better the 
chance of escape ; and so they set to work and lightened her 
by throwing her cargo of grain overboard. 
The island Presently the dawn broke, and the prospect opened to 
their wistful gaze. They saw an island under their lee. It 
was Melita, the modern Malta ; 1 but none of them, not even 

1 There was another Melita, the modern Meleda, in the Adriatic Gulf off the 
coast of Dalmatia ; and it has been maintained (cf. Coleridge, Table Talk, 
August 1 8, 1832) that this was the scene of the shipwreck. The reasons alleged 



THE VOYAGE TO ROME 497 

the sailors, recognised it, since it was off the course which 
they were accustomed to steer in making the voyage to 
Rome. To the left lay a rocky headland, the Point of 
Koura, where the sea was breaking with that thunderous 
roar which had been booming in their ears all night. But 
right ahead was a deep bay with a fringe of smooth sand 
excellently adapted for beaching the ship. It was a welcome 
sight, and they hastened to avail themselves of the oppor- 
tunity. They unlashed the rudders, and, since the mast 
was gone, set the little foresail which, in its normal use, 
served to facilitate the operation of putting the ship about 
by making her ' pay off ' on the other tack after she had 
been brought head to wind. 1 Then they slipped the anchors, 
and the ship bore down toward the beach. 

Ere she reached it, she ran on a sunken reef. 2 The stern ah safely 
was battered to pieces by the terrific impact of the pursuing landed - 
billows, but the bow stuck fast in the soft clay. There was 
still a chance of escape, since the reef acted as a breakwater, 
and the sea betwixt it and the beach, though deep, was 
smooth, and it would be easy to swim or paddle ashore. It 
might have been expected that the common danger would 

are : (i) The island was in the Adria (cf. ver. 27), and Malta lies close to Sicily 
in the open Mediterranean. But 6 'Adplas was not merely the gulf on the east 
of Italy ; it included also the whole middle basin of the Mediterranean. The 
geographer Ptolemy distinguishes 'the Adrian Gulf ('Adplas /c6X7ros), which 
bounds Italy on the east, and ' the Adriatic Sea ' (' ASpiariicbv irt\ayos), which 
bounds it on the south, and also bounds Sicily on the east, the Peloponnesus on 
the west and south, and Crete on the west. (2) The inhabitants are termed 
1 barbarians ' (xxviii. 2), whereas the Maltese were highly civilised. But papfiapos 
means simply 'a foreigner.' Cf. n. on Rom. i. 14, p. 380. (3) There are no 
vipers (xxviii. 3) in Malta. But the extinction of noxious creatures is nothing 
uncommon. Cf . Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck, pp. 1 50 ff. 

1 6 Aprtfiw (xxvii. 40), not 'the mainsail' (A.V.), but 'the foresail' (R.V.), 
set on a little mast over the prow. In his description of the shipwreck of his 
friend Catullus, Juvenal (xil. 69) tells how the mast was cut away during the 
storm, and then, when it abated, ' the wretched prow ran before the wind with a 
poor device of clothes outspread and its own sail, the only one remaining ' {et t 
quod superaverat unum, veto prora suo) ; where the scholiast annotates : artemone 
solo velijuaritnt) 'they sailed with the artemon only.' 

8 r67ros 5ia0dX a<7 <ros (ver. 41), 'a place dividing the sea.' ' Tceniam intelligit, 
quales multse solent esse non procul a iittore, ita tamen ut inter eas et littus mare 
interluat' (Grot). Thus Dion Chrysostom (v. 9) speaks of the shoals of the 
Syrtis as ^pa\ia koX &a0d\arra ical raivlai naicpa.L making the sea impassable 
(Awopw). 

3 I 



498 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

have established a bond of brotherhood between the hapless 
castaways ; but self-preservation is a strong and pitiless 
instinct, and just as the sailors had attempted to take to 
the boat and desert their comrades, so now the soldiers 
planned a still worse brutality. The Roman law held them 
answerable with their lives for the safe delivery of their 
prisoners, 1 and they proposed to butcher the wretched gang 
lest they should swim ashore and make off. Julius would 
have agreed but that Paul would have been included in the 
massacre. His respect and affection had been enlisted by 
the Apostle's bearing throughout that terrible fortnight ; 
and for his sake he prohibited the atrocity, and directed 
that such as could swim should plunge in and strike out for 
the shore, and that the others should construct rafts of the 
wreckage. And presently all the two hundred and seventy- 
six were safe on the beach. 

Kindly Luke in his Greek manner calls the islanders ' barbarians,' 

islanders. mean j n g n0 { ^hat they were savages but merely that they 
were not Greeks. 2 Melita was originally a Phoenician settle- 
ment ; subsequently it passed under Greek dominion ; 
but since 218 B.C. it had belonged to Rome and was included 
in the Province of Sicily. The inhabitants were thus highly 
civilised. Their language would be the Common Greek, the 
lingua franca of the Empire. 8 And, albeit heathen and 
superstitious, they were a kindly folk. All in the vicinity 
had trooped down to the beach on espying a ship in peril ; 
and they helped the castaways ashore and entreated them 
humanely. ' They afforded us,' says Luke, ' uncommon 
philanthropy ' ; and it is remarkable that the word occurs 

xxvii. 3. but thrice in the New Testament — once of the kindness which 
Julius, a Roman soldier, showed his prisoner ; here of the 
kindness of those heathen to the shipwrecked voyagers ; 

Tit. Hi. 4. and again of the kindness which God has manifested 
in Christ to sinful man. It would be the beginning of 
November, 4 and the castaways were shivering in the biting 
north-east blast and the driving rain. There was no imm<* 
diate refuge for so many, since the town of Melita stood 
inland, remote from the scene of the shipwreck ; but the 

1 Cf. p. 133. ■ Cf. n. on Rom. i. 14, p. 380. 

■ Cf. pp. 7 f- * Cf . Append. I. 



THE VOYAGE TO ROME 499 

islanders kindled a bonfire * in some sheltered nook, and 
warmed and fed the forlorn strangers. 

Here an incident occurred which afforded Paul a golden The chief 
opportunity. In that spirit of self-forgetfulness which he JJaSV 
had displayed on board the doomed ship, he employed himself ^^Jj-"* 
in gathering a faggot of brushwood, and he was putting it on Paul and 
the fire when a viper which had lodged in it fastened on his pinions, 
hand. The islanders expected to see him drop dead, and 
in their superstitious fashion concluded that he was a 
criminal overtaken by vengeance. But ere the half -numbed 
reptile had struck its fangs into his flesh, he calmly shook 
it off into the fire, and was none the worse. It was an entirely 
natural occurrence ; but it seemed a miracle to the islanders 
and, like the folk of Lystra, they now concluded that he was Ac. xiv. u. 
a god. Forthwith he was invested with sanctity in their 
eyes, and hence a substantial benefit presently accrued. 
Hard by lay the estate of Publius, the chief magistrate or, 
as the native title was, ' the Primate ' of the island, 2 and he 
invited the Apostle and his attendants, Luke and Aristarchus, 
to his residence until they should procure a lodging of their 
own. 

His gracious hospitality was richly rewarded. His father Healing of 
was prostrate with a malady which Luke, with professional 
accuracy, defines as dysentery with intermittent fever ; 3 and 
the Apostle was introduced into his chamber, and after 
praying by his couch laid his hands on him, as the Master Cf. Lk. iv. 
had been wont, and healed him. The miracle was a pro- 4 °' x l ' I3r 
clamation of the Gospel. Paul indeed wrought it, but he 
wrought it in the name of Christ and ere working it he openly 
invoked Christ's aid. The wonderful story spread over the 
island, and from near and far the sick repaired to the house 
of Publius and were healed. Their gratitude was boundless. 

1 irvpdt in I Mace. xii. 28 'a camp-fire.' 

1 irp&Tos 7-77$ vr)<rov. The plur. {oi irpQroi) is frequent in the sense of ' the 
principal men' of a pkee or community (cf. xiii. 50, xxv. 2, xxviii. 17), but the 
sing, is never so used. Nor could Publius have been called ' the principal man of 
the island ' while his father was still alive unless in a public or official capacity ; 
and it appears from two inscriptions found at Citta Vecchia, the ancient Melita, 
that irpQros was an official appellation. Cf. Lewin, Fast. Sacr., 1901. 

8 The plur. irvperol is a technical medical term. Cf. Hobart, Med. Lang, of 
St. Luke^ p. 52. 



500 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

They compassed Paul and his companions with observances 
and loaded them with benefactions. Their generosity was 
opportune. It would enlarge the Apostle's scanty store and 
furnish him and his companions for the months which they 
must pass on the island. It enabled him to procure a 
lodging and remove thither after a sojourn of only three days 
under Publius' hospitable roof, 
voyage to It happened that another Alexandrian corn-ship, named 
Italy. < jj ie f wm Brothers ' after Castor and Pollux, the patrons of 
seamen, had been stayed in her passage and had found in the 
island a safe winter-harbour ; and it was arranged that she 
should carry Julius and his convoy to Italy. On February 8 
navigation was resumed, and Paul embarked with his 
companions laden with parting gifts from the grateful 
people. The ship set sail, and a favouring breeze sped her 
on her course as far as Syracuse. There the wind headed 
her, and she was forced to put into the anchorage. After 
she had lain for three days it veered to the north-west, and 
she managed by dint of tacking to fetch Rhegium ; but, 
unable for lack of sea-room to beat through the Strait of 
Messina, she lay there for twenty-four hours. Then the 
wind set in from the south, and she ran directly and swiftly 
on her course. Within twenty-four hours she reached her 
destination, the port of Puteoli on the Bay of Naples. 
Sojourn at Puteoli was the principal harbour in the south of Italy ; 
progressto an d> though over a hundred miles distant from Rome, it was 
Rome. the regular port of the Egyptian corn-ships. 1 There they 
unladed, and there the passengers disembarked and pro- 
ceeded to the Capital by the Appian Road. 2 The Apostle 
and his company did not set out immediately. Julius had 
to communicate his arrival to his superior officer and await 
instructions regarding the disposal of his prisoners ; and 
meanwhile they were detained at Puteoli. 3 The detention 

1 Cf. Sen. Epist. lxxvii. 

2 On his journey from Alexandria the Emperor Titus followed the Apostle's 
route. Cf. Suet. Tit. 5 : ' Festinans in Italiam, cum Rhegium, deinde Puteolos 
oneraria nave appulisset, Romam inde contendit expeditissimus.' 

3 In xxviii. 14 the chief authorities have iiri/Jteivcu, 'we were besought (by the 
brothers) to remain among them.' But it was Julius and not Paul who had the 
ordering of the march, and thus the variant iirifj-eiuavres is inevitable : ' having 
found brothersj we remained among them for seven days and were comforted.' 



THE VOYAGE TO ROME 501 

was grateful to Paul ; for he was unnerved by his rough 
experience, and his heart wa3 troubled as the supreme 
ordeal approached. In a city so important as Puteoli and 
so intimately connected with the Capital there was naturally 
a community of Christians. They were unapprised of the 
advent of the famous Apostle ; but he searched them out, 1 
and was received with warm kindness. It comforted him and 
his companions ; and after a week's sojourn among those 
sympathetic friends they started on their march. Tidings 
of his approach had reached Rome, and the Christians 
hastened out to meet him. They had never seen his face, 
but they had heard his fame and they had read the great 
encyclical which he had sent them from Corinth three years 
previously. One contingent encountered him at Appii 
Forum and a second at Tres Tabernae, and their welcome 
was like a royal ovation. 2 It dispelled his misgivings. It 
showed him that the appeal of his encyclical had not fallen 
on deaf ears and that the hearts of the Roman Christians 
were open to him. ' He thanked God and took courage/ 

1 e&pdvres, cf. xxi. 4. 

* *b &v&t>T7i<riv t cf. p. 13a 



THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 

Arrival at On reaching Rome Julius marched his gang of prisoners to 

at Rome. ^ e Q aS f ra PeregHnorum on the Caelian Hill, and handed 

them over to the commander, the Princeps PeregHnorum. 1 

Paul, however, doubtless on the ground of the report of 

Festus and the testimony which Julius would bear to his 

behaviour during the terrible voyage, was accorded a 

welcome privilege. He was allowed to reside outside the 

barracks, apparently in the house of some hospitable 

Christian, 2 in the enjoyment of comparative freedom. He 

cf. xxviii. was not indeed suffered to stir abroad, and he was linked by 

2 °- the wrist day and night to a military guard ; but his 

attendants, Luke and Aristarchus, might go where the}' 

would, and visitors had unrestrained access to him. 

Hostile Throughout his ministry his constant rule had been ' to 

by the° n tne J ew > m * ne fi rst instance, and to the Greek/ 8 and he 

Jewish pursued it on his arrival at Rome. He allowed himself only 

*t >t d (i fire 

three days of much needed repose ; and then, precluded 
from visiting the Synagogue, he invited the representatives 
of the Jewish community, probably the Rulers of the 
Synagogue, to wait upon him, and told them the story of 
his arrest, his imprisonment, and his appeal to the Emperor, 
affirming at the same time his loyalty to his people and the 
ancient Faith. They accorded his statement but a chill 
reception. No letter regarding him, they said, had been 

1 The Old Latin (Gig.) rendering of the term rTparoveSdpxys in the sentence 
which HLP insert in ver. 1 6 : i iKarbvrapxot rapiSuKe roi/t 8€<rfiiovs ry arparo- 
Ttdapxy, t$ 8t UatiXy iirerpdwr), k.t.X. Cf. p. 490. 

1 His abode is called a &vla (ver. 23), which may signify either an inn (Suid. : 
Karaydjyiov, KaraKv/jLa) or a hospitable lodging with a &vos (cf. Rom. xvi. 23 ; Ac. 
xxi. 16). The latter seems most suitable in Phm. 22, the only instance of the 
term in N. T, In any case it was only a temporary accommodation, for he pre* 
sently removed to a rented lodging. 

" Cf. p. 83. 
502 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 503 

sent them from the Sanhedrin, nor had any evil report of him 
reached their ears ; but they knew the hostility with which 
his sect was universally regarded, and therefore they must 
hear what his opinions were ere they could pronounce upon 
them. A day was fixed, and at an early hour they came to 
his abode in large numbers ; and he expounded his Gospel 
to them, and right on to the evening adduced from the 
Scriptures testimonies to the Messiahship of Jesus. Some 
of his hearers were convinced, but others rejected his argu- 
ments ; and when they fell a- wrangling, he announced that 
he must leave them alone and devote himself to the Gentiles. 

It was thus that the Apostle's ambition to see Rome was The 
realised ; and if his fortunes were dark, those of the Im- NeroT° r 
perial City were still darker. It was the sixth year of Nero's 
reign. Born on December 15, a.d. 37, 1 he had at the death 
of Claudius on October 13, 54, been acclaimed Emperor at 
the early age of seventeen. 2 Though the child of a wicked 
father, Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, and a still more 
wicked mother, the younger Agrippina, who had plotted for 
his elevation to the throne and hesitated at no crime to attain 
her end,* his youth was rich in fair promise. It won him the His early 
regard of the populace not only that his maternal grand- P roraise - 
parents were the good Germanicus and the elder Agrippina 
but that he had inherited from his infamous father the charm 
of physical beauty. 4 He was, moreover, singularly fortunate 
in possessing two wise counsellors. 5 One was his tutor, the 
Stoic philosopher, L. Annaeus Seneca, brother of Gallio, that 
Proconsul of Achaia who had befriended Paul at Corinth 
in the year 52. And the other was Afranius Burr us, the 
Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, a distinguished soldier who 
exhibited in a degenerate age the ancient Roman austerity 
and rectitude. 

1 Suet. Ner. 6. 

* Tac. Ann. xn. 69 j Suet Ner. 8. Lewin, Fast. Sacr., 2066. 

* When Domitius was congratulated on the birth of his son, he is said to have 
remarked that a child of himself and Agrippina could be nought but a thing of 
detestation and a public ill (Suet Ner. 6). And it is told of Agrippina that she 
consulted the astrologers about Nero, and when they told her that he would be 
Emperor and kill his mother, she replied : ' Let him kill me, provided he is 
Emperor' (Tac. Ann. XIV. 9). 

4 Tac. Ann. xi. n, 12. * Ibid. xm. a. 



5o 4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Quin. Seneca and Burrus dominated the youthful Emperor, and 

NeroViT n i s reign opened auspiciously. On his accession he declared 
his intention of reverting to the precedent of Augustus ; and 
he made good his profession, on the testimony of his merciless 
biographer, 1 by * omitting no opportunity of liberality, 
clemency, or courtesy.' He abolished or diminished the 
more oppressive taxes, repressed the malign activities of the 
informers, 2 and treated the Senate with respect while 
refusing the servile honours which it would have heaped 
upon him. He also ameliorated the administration of 
justice. Extreme penalties w r ere rarely inflicted ; and it 
is told how on one occasion when he was asked to sign a 
death-warrant, the young Emperor sighed : ' How I wish 
that I could not write ! ' 
subse- Such was the manner of Nero during the first five years 

reign of of his reign ; and it is no wonder that after forty years of 
terror. atrocity under Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius this benignant 
regime, the quinquennium Neronis, should have seemed a 
very age of gold and been wistfully remembered in the dark 
days which ensued. 3 It was, however, short-lived. It is said 
that Seneca was early aware of his pupil's latent ferocity, 
and would remark to his intimates that * once the lion tasted 
blood, his native cruelty would return.' And the predic- 
tion was terribly fulfilled in the month of April, 59, when 
Nero, now in the twenty-second year of his age, impatient 
of the domination of his mother Agrippina, procured her 
assassination. 4 
Paul's dis- This was the end of the happy quinquennium and the 
ment! ge " beginning of that reign of terror which has invested the name 
of Nero with lurid horror and unrivalled infamv. It had 
happened less than a year ere the Apostle's arrival. Perhaps 
it was at Puteoli that he had his first intelligence of the 
ominous crime, and this would account for the gloom which 
there enshrouded his soul. He had been trusting that he 
would find justice in the court of the Emperor and soon be 
set free to prosecute his ministry in the Capital ; but now 

1 Suet. JVer. 10-15. * Cf. pp. 384 f. 

* Cf. Aurel. Vict. Cos. 5 : * uti merito Trajanus saepius testaretur procul differre 
cunGtos principes Neronis quinquennio.' 

• Tac. Ann. xiv. 1-9. Cf. Lewin, Fast Sacr., 1874. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 505 

that dream was rudely dispelled. And, as the days passed 
and he learned in his seclusion how events were shaping, 
his hope would wax ever fainter. 

It is an evidence of his anticipation of a speedy trial that Defer- 
he had accepted the hospitality of some Christian in the Atrial 
city. It was a temporary accommodation, and he availed 
himself of it only for the brief space which, he expected, 
would elapse ere the hearing of his appeal. But the days 
passed, and still he was never summoned before the imperial 
tribunal. Nor is the reason obscure. There was open 
enmity between him and the Jews of Rome, and it lay with 
the latter to sustain his prosecution in name of the Sanhedrin. 
They could hardly hope for the condemnation of a prisoner 
whom the Procurator Festus had pronounced innocent, but 
they might delay his trial and thus prevent him from 
propagating his heresy in their midst ; and this end they 
would easily compass by requesting time for the accumulation 
of evidence and the production of witnesses. 1 It would be 
at the best a tedious process, since the sphere of the Apostle's cf. Ac. 
activities was so remote and so extensive ; and they would be XX1V " s> 
at no pains to expedite it. Moreover, they had a friend at 
court in the person of the infamous Poppa^a Sabina, subse- 
quently Nero's Empress and now his mistress. 2 Despite 
her flagrant immorality she was, like not a few ladies of rank 
at that period, 3 a votaress of the Jewish religion, and at 
least two instances are recorded where she successfully 
supported Jewish interests. 4 

It is thus in no wise inexplicable that Paul's case should a rich 
have been deferred. No less than two years elapsed ere he Ac?xxvm. 
was brought to trial, and it was a repetition of his experience 3°- 
at Caesarea. Every day he hoped that the summons would Cf. Phil, 
come, and every day he was disappointed. Yet he did phm.-aj£' 
not let the time pass unimproved. He removed from his 
friend's hospitable abode to a lodging which he rented in 
the city, and there in the freedom of his own dwelling he re- 
ceived numerous visitors and instructed them in the faith of 
the Gospel. Notwithstanding its limitations his ministry 
achieved signal success ; and indeed those very limitations 

1 Cf. Tac. Ann. xiu. 43, 52. * Ibid. xin. 45, 46; xiv. 1, 60, 61. 

8 Cf. pp. 6 f. * Jos. Vit. 3 ; Ant. XX. viii. 11. 



5 o6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

procured him a rare and unexpected opportunity. He was 
constantly under the surveillance of a Praetorian guardsman ; 
and it proved no irksome duty for the soldiers who were told 
off to discharge it. The gracious prisoner won their hearts. 
They heard his discourses to the visitors who at stated hours 
thronged his chamber, and the letters which he dictated to 
his amanuensis for the comfort and instruction of his 
Churches ; and in his leisure hours he would converse with 
them and tell them of the Saviour for whose sake he wore 
the chain. When they returned to the barracks, they carried 

cf. Phil. i. a report to their comrades, and it quickly spread abroad. 

12, 13. jj^ Apostle and his Gospel became the talk of the city. The 

cf. Phil, slaves of the imperial palace heard it, and some of them 
repaired to his lodging and were won to the Christian Faith. 

judaist There was thus much to gladden the captive, yet there 

was not a little also to grieve him. The hostility of the 
Jews was inevitable, and it would sit lightly upon him ; but 
it vexed him that he encountered enmity in the Church. 
The Christian community at Rome was mixed, partly Jewish 
and partly Gentile. Its origin is obscure, but it is certain 
that the Gospel had early obtained a footing in the Metro- 
polis, and it was probably introduced by those Jews from 

Cf. Ac. n. Rome who witnessed the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on 
the great Day of Pentecost. Hence it would appear that the 
first Roman Christians were Jewish converts, but they 
were ere long reinforced by Gentile believers. The Roman 
satirist lamented some fifty years later that Syrian Orontes 
had long poured its stream into the Tiber — a turbid flood of 
oriental jargon, mountebankery, and immorality. 1 But 
these were in no wise the sole contributions which Syria 
made to the Imperial City. Antioch on the Orontes was the 
metropolis of Gentile Christendom, and she would send many 
a Christian to Rome. Thus the Roman Church was a mixed 
communit}', and it was rent by the troublous controversy 
which Paul had encountered in Galatia, Macedonia, and 
Achaia. The Judaists raised the old outcry against his 
Gospel of universal grace, and insisted on the permanent 
obligation of the Mosaic Law and the necessity of imposing 
its ceremonies on Gentile converts. It grieved the Apostle, 

1 Juv. in. 62 ff. 



10 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 507 

yet he recognised that even this vexatious controversy was 
serving the supreme end. The Judaists, notwithstanding Cf. Phil. i. 
their narrow prejudice, were Christians, and even a Judaist I5 " x ' 
Gospel was better than paganism. Moreover, he had con- 
fidence in his message of salvation by faith, and he was 
sure that discussion would inevitably issue in its triumph. 

Such was the course of events at Rome while Paul awaited Epaphro- 
his citation to the Emperor's tribunal. It appears that puiippi. 
Luke and Aristarchus had left him soon after his arrival. 1 He 
would doubtless despatch them on errands to some of the cf. 2 Cor. 
Churches whose welfare was his constant care ; and it seems xl ' 28 * 
that Luke went to Philippi where he had ministered so long 
and where his appearance would be warmly welcomed. 2 
The Apostle, however, had not been left alone ; for Timothy 
had joined him, and not only acted as his amanuensis but 
ministered to him with that beautiful tenderness which had 
always characterised his attitude toward his father in Christ 
and which was specially conspicuous amid the distresses 
of those later years. And by and by he was gladdened by 
the advent of another true-hearted comrade. This was 
Epaphroditus of Philippi, and he came as the deputy of his 
Church. The Philippians had been apprised of the Apostle's 
fortunes. Secundus of Thessalonica on returning from 
Jerusalem to Macedonia three years previously would 
report his arraignment before the Sanhedrin and his im- 
prisonment at Csesarea, and occasional intelligence of his 
situation would subsequently be conveyed to Philippi. 
Indeed it is likely that he would write to so important a 
Church during his two years' seclusion. 3 Communication 

1 The evidence is twofold, (i) They are not expressly included in the greeting 
at the close of Phil. (iv. 21, 22) as, in view of their intimacy with the Philippians, 
they must have been had they been present. They had rejoined the Apostle when 
he wrote Col. and Phm. , and they are mentioned in these letters (cf. Col. iv. 
10, 14 ; Phm. 24). (2) Had they, especially Luke, been present, Paul could not 
have written Phil. ii. 19-21. 

8 Luke's visit to Philippi is proved by Phil. iv. 3, if he was indeed the yv-qoiot 
<rvv£vyos. 

3 The canonical epistle is the only extant letter of the Apostle to the Philippians j 
but Polycarp {Phil, iii) speaks of ' letters ' {kiri<yro\i%) which Paul had written to 
them and which they then po?sessed. This indeed is not conclusive, since the 
plur. e-KKjTokax might denote a single letter (cf. Lightfoot, Phil., pp. 138 ff.) 5 
but the probability remains. 



5o8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Letter 

and gift 
from the 
Philippian 
Church. 



Cf. ii. 19; 
iv. 10. 



Devoted 
service of 
Epaphro- 
ditus at 
Rome. 



would cease on his departure for Rome ; but now, if Luke 
had indeed gone to Philippi, he would tell the story of the 
eventful voyage and inform the brethren of their revered 
teacher's plight in the Imperial Capital. 

Their sympathy was awakened, and they promptly dis- 
played it in their own practical and generous fashion. The 
Apostle was in sore need. He was not indeed actually 
destitute, for he had been well furnished by the liberality of 
the people of Melita ; but he had to meet the expense of his 
rental and maintenance at Rome, nor was he permitted to 
go abroad and earn a wage by plying his craft of tent-making. 
And he was a stranger in the vast Metropolis. The Church 
there was not his foundation. Its members were bound to 
him by no ties of gratitude and affection, and the converts 
whom he had won since his arrival belonged to the poorer 
order — soldiers of the Praetorian Guard and slaves of the 
imperial household. They could afford him nothing. His 
little store was fast dwindling, and unless he were brought 
speedily to trial he must be destitute. His plight was 
grievous, and it appealed to the Philippians. Their gener- 
ous souls were conscience-stricken. Nine years previously, 
when his need was sore, they had repeatedly relieved it ; x 
but when the need passed, their liberality had ceased. It 
was not that their hearts had been estranged. Their love 
was as true and fond as ever, and had they known of his 
distress, they would gladly have succoured him. And now 
that they were apprised of it, they hastened to make amends. 
They levied contributions, and they wrote a letter of gracious 
sympathy. They deplored the long winter of their apparent 
neglect, and assured him that it had been occasioned not by 
any defect of love but solely by their ignorance of his need ; 
and they begged him to cheer them with tidings of his con- 
dition. And they deputed Epaphroditus to convey their 
letter and their gift to Rome. 

It was probably midsummer when Epaphroditus presented 
himself. Paul and his two companions had arrived there 
about the beginning of March, and Luke would hardly 
leave him immediately. The journey to Philippi via Dyrra- 
chium and the Egnatian Road occupied little less than a 

1 Cf. pp. 137, 152. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 509 

month ; i and if he set out in April, he would arrive in May. 
A considerable time would be consumed by the telling of his 
story and the raising of the contribution, and thus July would 
be well advanced ere Epaphroditus joined the Apostle. He 
proved himself a true friend and a staunch ally. He made 
no haste to return home, but stayed on with the Apostle and 
aided him in his ministry, particularly, it would seem, in his 
controversy with the Judaists. And for this ' warfare ' he Cf. ii. 25. 
was well qualified, since the question had so recently been 
debated in Macedonia and he was familiar with the issues. 
His zeal, however, cost him dear. The autumn was an 
insalubrious season at Rome, 2 and Epaphroditus sickened 
amid his labours, and for a while his life was in danger. 
During his tedious convalescence his heart turned homeward, 
and his longing became insupportable when he received an 
anxious message from his friends. They had heard of his 
sickness and would fain know how he was faring ; and he 
decided to set out immediately and relieve their apprehension. 

He would convey to Philippi an answer to the letter which a letter to 
he had brought, and the Apostle addressed himself to its 
composition. It had been long delayed. In view of his 
activities at Rome it can hardly have been earlier than 
September when Epaphroditus fell sick ; and it would take 
the better part of two months for the report of his illness 
to find its way to his friends and their anxious inquiry to 
travel back to Rome. And thus it would be the month of 
November when Paul wrote. His letter is an outpouring 
of his heart's gratitude and affection. It is the sweetest and 
tenderest of all his surviving letters, and its tone evinces 
how much he owed to the sympathy of his Philippian friends 
and the kindness of their deputy. His situation was indeed 
distressful. He was a prisoner ; and not only was he vexed 
by the hostility of a powerful party in the Roman Church but 

1 The distance between Rome and Brundisium was about 360 miles, and it 
occupied some ten days (cf. Ovid, Epist. iv. v. 7 f. : ' Luce minus decima 
dominam venietis in Urbem, | Ut festinatum non faciatis iter.'). The passage 
from Brundisium to Dyrrachium depended on weather conditions, but a single day 
commonly sufficed. From Dyrrachium to Philippi the distance was about 370 
miles, and this would consume about a fortnight, since travel was less expeditious 
there than in Italy. 

2 Cf. Hor. Epist, I. vii. 1-9. 



510 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

his prospect was dark and ominous. The long deferment of 
his appeal was disquieting, and the rumours which reached 
him of Jewish machinations and imperial tyranny justified 
gloomy forebodings of the final issue. His spirit might well 
have been oppressed, yet it was light and glad. ' Joy ' is the 
letter's refrain, occurring oftener within its brief compass 
than in any other. 1 

LETTER TO PHILIPPI 

Address After the formal address, making special mention of the 

mendation. Elders, ■ the Overseers ' or Shepherds of the Flock, 2 and the 

Deacons, since it was they who had directed the Church's 

contribution on his behalf, the letter opens with an assurance 

of the Apostle's continual and affectionate regard. 

i. i Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus, to all the saints 
in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the Overseers and 
2 Deacons. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and 
the Lord Jesus Christ. 

3, 4 I thank my God whenever I think of you, ever in my every 
supplication for every one of you making my supplication 

5 with joy for the part you have taken in spreading the Gospel 

6 from the first day until the present hour. Just this is my 
confidence, that He who inaugurated a good work in you 

7 will carry it to perfection until the Day of Christ Jesus. And 
indeed it is right for me to be thus disposed on behalf of you 
all, since I hold you in my heart, being as you all are, alike in 
my imprisonment and in my defence and confirmation of the 

6 Gospel, my partners in grace. For God is my witness how I 
9 am longing for you all in the tenderness of Christ Jesus. And 
this is my prayer — that your love may still more and more 
io overflow in full knowledge and all perception, that you may 
ii have moral discernment 3 so as to be sincere and o&enceless 
against the Day of Christ, replete with that harvest of right- 
eousness which is wrought by Jesus Christ to the glory and 
praise of God. 

The , , In their letter the Philippians had commiserated the 
situation Apostle on his unhappy situation ; and now he hastens to 

at Rome. 

1 x&P*, 'joy,' five times (i. 4, 25; ii. 2, 29} iv. 1) ; x ai P eiy t 'rejoice,* 
eleven times (i. 18 bis ; ii. 17 bis, 18 bis, 28 ; iii. 1 ; iv. 4 bis, 10). 
* Cf. n. on Ac. xx. 28, p. 463. 

8 eh to 8oKi/xa£eit> v/ias ra 5ia<pipoPTa, cf. n. on Rom. ii. 18, p. 390. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 511 

show them how wonderfully it had eventuated. It had 
procured the Gospel an entrance into the barracks of the 
Praetorian Guards and had stirred most of the Roman 
Christians to courage and zeal, while even the opposition of 
the Judaists was serving a gracious end by compelling 
reflection. And so they must not grieve. It was true that 
his personal prospect was dark. His fate was hanging in the 
balance, and there seemed little likelihood of his escaping 
condemnation and a martyr's death. But his resolution 
was so to bear himself that, whatever the issue, Christ might 
be magnified. Indeed he had no fear of death. It would be 
a blessed release, and he would almost choose it. Yet when 
he considered how eagerly the Philippians desired him, he 
could not but believe that he would be spared and have 
the joy of seeing them again. 

12 Now I desire you to recognise, brothers, that my fortunes 
have actually issued in the advancement of the Gospel. 

13 It has become notorious among the whole of the Praetorian 
Guard and all the rest of the citizens that it is for my 

14 relation with Christ that I am a prisoner ; and the majority 
of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord by my 
imprisonment and with more overflowing boldness are 

15 fearlessly talking of the Word of God. There are some 
indeed who are preaching the Christ for envy and strife, 
but there are some also who are doing it for good will. 

1 6 The latter are prompted by love, knowing that I am 

17 appointed for the defence of the Gospel, while it is by 
partisanship that the former are prompted to proclaim the 
Christ, in no pure spirit, thinking to aggravate the distress 

18 of my imprisonment. And what then ? Only that in every 
way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is being pro- 
claimed ; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice ; 

19 for I know that ' this will result for me in salvation ' job xiii. 
through your supplication and a rich supply of the Spirit l6 Lxx 

20 of Jesus Christ, according to my eager expectation and 
hope that in nothing shall I be put to shame, but with all 
boldness of speech now as always Christ will be magnified 
in my body whether through life or through death. 

21, 22 For to me living is Christ and dying is gain. But if living 
in the flesh be my portion, this means for me a harvest of 

23 work ; and which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am in a 
dilemma : I have the longing to strike my tent and be Cf. a Cor. 

24 with Christ, for this were far, far better ; yet my staying v - 1 - 

25 still in the flesh is more necessary for your sakes. And of this 



5i2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

I am confident, and I know that I shall stay, I shall stay on 
among you, for your advancement and joy in the Faith, 
26 so that in me you may have in Christ Jesus abundant 
reason for boasting through my advent again among you. 

Twofold Unhappily the music of the sweet letter is broken by a 

christian ° jarring note. The peace of the Philippian Church had been 

unity: disturbed by a petty dissension. It was indeed no vety 

serious matter, but it grieved the Apostle that even so slight 

a blot should sully the fair fame of this the noblest of his 

Churches. But for that his pride in the Philippians would 

have been without alloy, and he lovingly yet passionately 

pleads with them to banish it and ' complete his joy/ 

(1) The He sets before them two inspiring ideals. First he appeals 

citfzen! 7 to them to be worthy of their Christian ' citizenship/ here 

ship. introducing a new conception which had of late captivated 

j. 27; cf. his imagination and thenceforth moulded his thought of the 

Church. It grew out of his Roman citizenship, and it had 

taken definite shape in his mind when he found himself within 

the gates of the Imperial Capital, the Queen of the Nations, 

the Mistress of the World, and surveyed from that proud 

centre ' the wide arch of the ranged empire/ It seemed to 

him, as to St. Augustine three and a half centuries later, 

an earthly adumbration of the Civitas Dei, the Heavenly 

Commonwealth. The imperial spirit was strong in the 

Roman colony of Philippi, and he appeals to his friends to 

recognise their nobler citizenship and prove worthy of it, 

all the more that they were surrounded by jealous and 

malignant enemies. 

37 Only be worthy in your Citizenship of the Gospel of Christ, 
that, whether I come and see you or be far away, the account I 
have of you may be that you are standing fast in one spirit, 
with one soul supporting the Faith of the Gospel in its struggle, 

28 and never for a moment intimidated by your opponents. This 
is for them an evidence of ruin, but it is an evidence of your 

29 salvation — an evidence from God ; because the privilege has 
been granted you on Christ's behalf, not only to have faith in 

30 Him but to suffer on His behalf, engaged as you are in the same 
sort of contest which you saw me maintaining and now hear 
of my maintaining. 

But there was another and far more moving ideal. It was 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 513 

always the Apostle's wont to invest the commonest of duties (2) The 
with the loftiest of sanctions ; and just as he had incited se if. 
the Corinthians to Christian liberality by setting before [™™ ilia " 
them the example of the Lord's sacrificial self-impoverish- 2 cor. viii 
ment, so now he presents to the Philippians a like incen- 9 ' 
tive to self-effacement. He reminds them of Christ's self- 
humiliation. He was the Eternal Son of God, yet He freely 
surrendered that dignity. He became man ; the Lord of 
Glory made Himself a slave. It was a reversal of creation. 
At his creation man was ' made in the image of God, after Gen. i. 26. 
His likeness ' ; and that Divine Image, the Archetype of £f j*.*^ 
Humanity, was the Eternal Son. God's purpose was ' the »• j s. »*• 
conformation of humanity to the image of His Son ' ; but cl Rom. 
this was frustrated by sin. The Divine Image in humanity viii - 2 9- 
was defaced, and to remedy the disaster the Eternal Son 
was ' made in the likeness of men.' It was a temporary 
humiliation. Observe how the Apostle distinguishes between 
the ' form ' and the ' fashion.' Form is permanent, fashion 
transient. Man's form is the eternal image of God, and his 
fashion the frail and perishing estate into which sin has Cf. 1 Cor. 
brought him ; and the Archetype of Humanity, that He Ylh 3X * 
might ' conform humanity to His own image,' shared its 
fashion and endured to the uttermost its suffering and shame. 
And this infinite self-renunciation is His glory. It has 
exalted the name of Jesus and won Him universal adoration. 

ii. 1 If, then, the appeal of union with Christ counts for any- 
thing, if love's persuasion counts for anything, if the Spirit's 
fellowship counts for anything, if tenderness and com- 

2 passion count for anything, 1 complete my joy by espousing 
the same cause. Cherish the same love ; be united in 

3 soul ; espouse the one cause. Never be actuated by 
partisanship or vaingloriousness, but with humility deem 

1 The difficulty here lies in et rts (nrXdyxfoc. The obvious emendation et npa 
(Chrys., Ambrstr., Vulg., T. R.) has no MS. authority, et tis <nr\(£yxva is 
generally regarded as a mere grammatical slip on the part of the Apostle ; but 
since Cod. Bez. (D) and several minuses, have also ef nt irapa/jivdiov, some 
ancient interpreters take the nouns as predicates : ' if any one would be a comfort 
to me, if any one would be a consolation to my love, if any one would be a 
fellowship of spirit to me, if any one would be tenderness and compassion.' Cf. 
Euth. Zig. One authority (Euthal cod ) has ef ri odv irapaKX^ais, and the proba- 
bility is that ef ri, si quid valet, should be read throughout. Cf. Moulton, 
Proleg. y p. 59. 
2 K 



514 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

4 one another more important than yourselves, with an eye 
not to your own several interests but also to those of your 

5 neighbours. Harbour this sentiment which dwelt even in 

6 Christ Jesus. Though He existed primally in God's form, 1 
He did not deem His equality with God a treasure to be 

7 clutched. 2 No, He emptied Himself by taking a slave's 

8 form, being made in the likeness of men. And, being found 
in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself by carrying His 

9 obedience as far as death, yes, death on a cross. And 
therefore God also highly exalted Him and bestowed on 

io Him the Name which is higher than every name, that at 

is. xiv. 23. the name of Jesus ' every knee might bend,' among ' the 

11 denizens of heaven and earth and the nether world,' 3 ' and 

every tongue confess ' that Jesus Christ is Lord to the 

glory of God the Father. 
%2 And so, my beloved, as you have always been obedient, 

now — not merely as you would if I were with you but all the 

1 vic&pxuv, cf. note on Gal. ii. 14, p. 200. fJ-optp-f} is forma, the distinctive and 
unchangeable form. Cf. Chrys. : rb tiirapdWaKTOv y\ fJ.op<prj deUwai icaSus i<rn 
fioptpr). It is impossible to be of one essence and have the ' form ' of another 
essence. E.g. , no man has the form of an angel, nor has an irrational beast the 
form of a man. c^X^-a is habitus, figura, the 'fashion' or 'shape,' which may 
change while the ' form ' remains. Thus, the axw - of the world passes away 
(1 Cor. vii. 31), but not its poptpif) : the world itself remains though its 'fashion' 
changes. Satan may transfigure himself (fASTcuTxypaTlfctrdai) but he could not 
transform himself {/j.€Ta/jt,op<pod<T9ai) into an angel of light (cf. 2 Cor. xi. 14). 
Hence iv f^op<py Qtov vir&pxuv affirms our Lord's essential and eternal deity (as 
against Arianism) ; fj-op<f>T]v 8o6\ov \a{3ui> His true humanity (as against Doketism). 
The reality of His incarnate humanity is further affirmed by <Txyn&Ti evpedete <ht 
civOpojiros : in the days of His flesh He exhibited the ' fashion ' of a man — 
' habitus, cultus, vestitus, gestus, sermones victus, et actiones' (Beng.). It may 
seem impossible that one who was ' in the form of God ' should take ' the form 
of a slave ' ; and thus Spinoza {Epist. xxi) pronounces it no less absurd to say 
that God assumed human nature than to say that a circle has assumed the nature 
of a square. This, however, ignores the basal postulate of the Incarnation, viz., 
man's kinship with God, his creation 'in God's image.' Hence Christ, 'existing 
primally in God's form,' could nevertheless 'take a slave's form'; He could 
become man without ceasing to be God. And conversely, just as He, being in a 
slave's form, could be ' transformed ' (fierafiopcpoOffdac) into His primal glory (cf. 
Mt. xvii. 2 ; Mk. ix. 2), so we, without ceasing to be men, can be ' transformed ' 
into His image (cf. Rom. viii. 29, xii. 2 ; 2 Cor. iii. 18) — the ehdav in which we 
were created (cf . I Cor. xi. 7 ; Col. iii. 10) — and be ' made partakers of the 
divine nature ' (2 Pet. i. 4). 

* apirayfiSs, a 'catch,' a prize to be greedily clutched as a lion seizes his prey 
(cf. Moulton and Milligan, Vocab.). Here not, as the Arians understood it, a 
tpu-aiov, a privilege which Christ might have grasped and made His own, but, as 
the argument requires, a dignity which He actually possessed and would not 
retain like a miser clutching his gold. Cf. Isid. Pel. Epist. TV, 22. 

3 A phrase of contemporary Gnosticism. Cf. Hippolytus, Refut. V. 8. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 515 

more since I am far away — with fear and trembling work 

n out your own salvation ; for it is God that operates in you 

both the willing and the operating in pursuance of His 

14 good pleasure. Do everything without murmurings and 

15 disputations, that you may prove blameless and pure, 

' God's spotless children ' in the midst of ' a crooked and Dt. xxxii. 
perverse generation,' among whom you are seen shining like 5- 

16 stars in the world, holding forth a message of life, that I r4 * 
may have reason for boasting on the Day of Christ that I 

did not run my race in vain or ' spend my labour in vain.' is. xiix. 4; 

17 Nay, though my life-blood be poured out over the sacrifice lxv - 2 3- 
and priestly ministration of your faith, I rejoice and I 

18 share the joy of you all. And in the same manner I would 
have you also rejoice and share my joy. 

And now the Apostle passes to a personal explanation. The 
In their letter the Philippians had begged him to ' cheer p^em s 
them with information of his concerns/ and he tells them that arrange- 
he hopes ere long to send Timothy to them and be cheered 
with information of their concerns. He was only waiting 
until he should be able to tell them how his case was likely 
to go ; and his expectation was that he would soon be set 
at liberty, and then he would visit them himself. Meantime 
he was sending Epaphroditus back to Philippi to relieve the 
anxiety which the tidings of that good friend's sickness had 
occasioned them ; and they must honour him all the more 
for the service which he had rendered in their name during 
his stay at Rome. 

19 Now I am hoping, if the Lord Jesus will, to send Timothy to 
you ere long, that I too may be ' cheered by information of 

20 your concerns.' l I have no one with a soul like his — no one 

21 who will have a kindly regard for your concerns ; for they are 

22 all seeking their own ends, not those of Christ Jesus. But you 
are aware what he has proved himself : like father and child he 

23 and I slaved together in the service of the Gospel. Him, then, 
I am hoping to send as soon as ever I make out my prospects ; 

24 but I am confident in the Lord that I shall myself also come 

25 ere long. I deemed it necessary, however, to send to you 
Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-worker and fellow- 
soldier, whom you sent on an errand of priestly ministration 

26 to my need, since he was longing after you all and was home- 

27 sick 2 because you had heard that he was ill. Indeed he was 

1 Kay (b, ' I also,' a reference to the Philippians' letter. They had hoped to be 
cheered with tidings of his welfare, and he reciprocates their courtesy. 
1 dSrj/xoveip , cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 457. 



516 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

ill, almost at death's door ; but God had mercy on him, and 

not on him only but on me too, lest I should have grief upon 

*8 grief. I am sending x him, then, the more eagerly, that you 

may be rejoiced by the sight of him and my grief may be 

29 lessened. Welcome him, then, in the Lord with all joy, and 

30 hold men like him in honour ; for it was his devotion to the 
work of Christ that brought him nigh to death. He hazarded 

Cf. 1 Cor. his life to make up to me the ministry which you could not 
xvi. 17. render. 

Final And now he draws to a conclusion. Ere he closes he 

reverts to the dissension which was disturbing the Philippian 
Church, and would reiterate his counsel. 

m, 1 For the rest, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To repeat 
what I have already written to you is not irksome for me, and 
it is safe for you — — 

An inter- Here he breaks off. Something has occurred which 

ruption. interrupts the stream of his dictation and arrests Timothy's 

pen ; and when he resumes, it is to pour forth a torrent of 

burning indignation. The occasion was plainly a peculiarly 

offensive exhibition of Judaist animosity ; but he does not 

stay to define it, and hence it may be inferred that Epaphro- 

ditus had been the victim. It was unnecessary to recount the 

incident, since he would explain the circumstances when he 

delivered the letter. It was probably a rencontre at a 

meeting of the Church. Epaphroditus had been discoursing 

and had been assailed by the Judaist faction ; and now he 

has returned vexed and pained, and tells the story. 

a judaist Apparently the attack was threefold. First, the Judaists 

had indulged in coarse vituperation. They had stigmatised 

the Gentile converts as ' uncircumcised dogs ' — that foul 

epithet which the Jews were so fond of hurling at the Gentiles, 2 

likening them to the pariahs which prowled in quest of 

cf. Rev. garbage among the refuse-heaps outside an oriental town; 

IS * and this enkindled a flame of chivalrous resentment in the 

Apostle's breast. He retorted the epithet. The Judaists 

were the real pariahs, and their legal rites were the garbage. 

cf. Rom. Their boasted circumcision was only a symbol of spiritual 

li!ix. : °" grace, and the symbol without the grace was valueless. It 

1 ftre/i^a, epistolary aor. Cf. n. on Gal. vi. II, p. 219. 
$ Cf . The Days of His Fleshy p. 250. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 517 

was no true circumcision but mere concision, mere mutilation, Cf. Let, 
mere ' cutting in the flesh.' Again they had assailed the xxu s * 
Apostle ; and he replies that he was a better Jew than any 
of them, and his present attitude was no jealous depreciation 
of a privilege which he did not possess. He had been ' born 
in the purple/ He was an heir of the sacred traditions, and 
had once been devoted to the Law ; but he had found in 
Christ a nobler righteousness, and recognised that legal 
rites were in comparison naught but ' refuse.' Then they 
had preferred their old charge that the Gospel of salvation 
by faith relaxed moral obligation ; and this touched him 
in the quick. His Gentile converts, even the Philippians, 
too often lent colour to the calumny by their retention of 
the pagan taint ; and he implores them to realise the ethical 
requirements of the Gospel. The Christian life was a con- 
tinual conflict, a strenuous struggle toward the goal of a 
Christlike character, and he was himself striving to attain it. 

2 Beware of the ' dogs ' ; beware of the ' evil workers ' ; be- Cf. 3 Cor, 

3 ware of the concision. 1 For we are 'the circumcision' — we xl - z 3- 
who serve God's Spirit and boast in Christ Jesus and have no 
confidence in the flesh. 

4 And yet I have reason for confidence even in the flesh. If 
any one else fancies he may have confidence in the flesh, still 

5 more may I : circumcised as I was when eight days old ; born 
of Israel's race and of Benjamin's tribe, a Hebrew of Hebrew 

6 parentage ; as regards the Law a Pharisee ; as regards zeal a 
persecutor of the Church ; as regards righteousness — legal 

7 righteousness — past blame. But all these which were once 

8 gains to me, I have for Christ's sake deemed loss. Yes, and 
more than that : I deem everything to be loss for the sake of 
the transcendent advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. 2 

1 A contemptuous parody — not Trepirofirj but /cararo^, not ' circumcision ' but 
'amputation' (cf. Gal. v. 12). Such paronomasia was congenial to the ancient 
mind. Diogenes the Cynic was addicted to it. Cf. Diog. Laert. VI. 24 : ' He 
called the <rx°^V (school) of Euclid x°^V (bile) and the Siarpi/Sj; (discourse) of 
Plato Kararptj3r] (waste of time).' It is frequent in N. T. generally as a play upon 
words like the jingling proverb fiadrmara rraOritiaTa, 'experience teaches' (cf. 
Herod. 1. 207 ; ^Esch. Agam. 170), and in this kindly fashion our Lord 
emplo3 T ed it (cf. Mt. xvi. 18). Cf. Moulton's Winer, p. 794-6. 

2 Deissmann {Light from Anc. East, p. 383, n. 8) quotes a I st c. Byzantine 
inscription which records of a citizen of Olbia that he had ' advanced to know- 
ledge of the Augusti ' {i.e , the Emperors Augustus and Tiberius), f^XP 1 T & ! T &* 
Xe^acrrQv yvwaeus irpon6\J/ai>To$. On this analogy it is personal not speculative 
knowledge of Christ that the Apostle means. Cf. Jo. x. 15, xiv. 7, xvii. 3, 25. 



5i8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

For His sake I suffered the loss of everything and deem it but 

9 refuse, 1 that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having 

a righteousness of my own — the legal righteousness — but that 

which comes by faith in Christ, the righteousness which God 

io gives on the ground of faith, that I may know Him and the 

power of His Resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, 

ii being conformed to His death in the hope of attaining to the 

resurrection from the dead. 2 

Cf. Ac. xx. 12 Not that I have already laid hold or have already accom- 

24# plished the course ; but I am pressing on in the hope of laying 

fast hold on that for which Christ Jesus laid fast hold on me. 

13 Brothers, I do not yet reckon myself to have laid fast hold on it, 
but one thing I do : forgetting what lies behind and straining 

14 out toward what lies ahead, I am pressing on to the goal for 
the prize of God's upward call in Christ Jesus. 

15 Let all of us, then, who are mature, 3 be thus minded ; and if 
in aught you are differently minded, this also will God reveal to 

16 you. Only, so far as we have reached, let us march in unbroken 
rank. 

17 Unite in imitating me, brothers, and keep an eye on those 
who comport themselves after the pattern which we have set 

18 you. For there are many who comport themselves — I used 
often to speak of them to you, and now I speak of them even 

19 with tears, as the enemies of the Cross of Christ. Their end 
is ruin, their god is their appetite, and their glory is in their 

20 shame — men who mind earthly things. Our Eternal Common- 
wealth is in Heaven ; 4 and thence we are expecting a Saviour, 

21 the Lord Jesus Christ, who will refashion the body of our 
humiliation into conformity with the body of His glory after 
the operation of the power He has even to subject the universe 
to Himself. 

Resump- And now the Apostle resumes the exhortation which had 
final been so rudely interrupted. He names the two ladies — 
charge. Euodia and Syntyche — who had occasioned the dissension. 
Nothing is known of them beyond this unhappy reference. 
Their record had hitherto been honourable. They had been 
won to the Faith during his ministry at Philippi and had 
lent him valiant assistance in the founding of the Church, 
and throughout the ten years which had since elapsed they 
had served it well, perhaps in the capacity of deaconesses. 

1 A reversion to 'the dogs' (ver. 2), <ncu0a\a being refuse thrown to dogs. Cf. 
Suid. : a Kti{ia\ov , Kvaipakbv n 6v, rb to?$ rcvai j3aW6fievov. 

1 i) dvaffraait ra>v veKpuJv, the general resurrection ; t) &p&<TTa<ris 17 £k v€KpCiv i the 
resurrection of believers (cf. Ac. iv. 2 with Ac. xvii. 32 ; I Cor. xv. 12), 

* riXaoi, cf. n. on 1 Cor. ii. 6, p. 248. 

* vr&pxei, cf. n. on Gal. ii. 14, p. 200. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 519 

Hence he was the more grieved by their present behaviour ; 
and he appeals to Luke, who had proved his skill in spiritual 
no less than physical healing, to help them to a better 
frame. The ranks of his old comrades had been thinned 
in the process of the years, and he bespeaks kindly considera- 
tion of the survivors, particularly one named Clement. Un- 
distinguished as they might be in the world's esteem, their 
names were in the Book of Life. 

iv. 1 And so, my brothers beloved and longed after, my joy and 

2 crown, thus stand fast in the Lord, beloved. I exhort 
Euodia * and I exhort Syntyche to espouse the same cause 

3 in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, true yoke-fellow, 2 help them 
— those women who shared my struggle in the cause of the 
Gospel, they and Clement 3 also and the rest of my fellow- 
workers whose names are in ' the Book of Life.' Cf. Ps. 



1 Not Euodias (masc). The fem. pronouns atfrcuj, a'lnues (ver. 3) show that 
both persons were women. And the reiterated irapaKaXQ makes the admonition 
impartial : both needed it. 

* yvTjvie <njv£vye. Whom the Apostle thus designates is problematic, but four 
suggestions may perhaps be confidently dismissed. I. The quaint notion that, 
despite the masc. terminations, yv-qnos avv^vyos denotes a woman and that she 
was Paul's wife (Clem. Alex. Strom, in. vi. 53 ; Orig. ad Rom. Comm. 1. 1), 
whom Renan {St. Paul, vi) identifies with Lydia of Philippi. 2. The idea that 
Si/ v {vyo j is a proper name, and the Apostle plays upon the common meaning of 
the word (cf. Phm. 10, 11) — 'Synzygus (yoke-fellow), truly so named.' This 
notion, like the former, was prevalent in Chrys.'s day (rivks 64 <pa<ru> 6vo/xa iiceivQ 
utipiov etvai). 3. Chrys., while rejecting the idea that the reference is to Paul's 
wife, thinks it may have been to some other woman but more probably to the 
brother or the husband of Euodia or Syntyche ; cautiously adding, however, tt\t)p 
€lt€ tovto etre 4k€iuo oti <r<p6dpa aKpipohoy&odat. Set. 4. Paul here apostrophises 
either Epaphroditus (Grotius, Lightfoot), the bearer of the letter, or Timothy (Estius), 
whom he intended sending to Philippi (cf. ii. 19-23). But, though he might have 
given such an injunction to either, he could hardly have introduced a personal 'aside' 
into the letter. It remains that he is addressing some prominent personage at 
Philippi, to whom the letter was consigned and who would read it to the Church ; 
and Luther hits the mark when he understands ' the chief Bishop ' or Presbyter. 
That had been Luke's position during his ministry at Philippi, and on revisiting 
the Church he would resume the dignity if not the office. There was no one 
whom Paul could more fittingly have designated his 'true yoke-fellow,' a phrase 
which recalls Agamemnon's designation of Odysseus (iEsch. Agam. 815) : £evxQds 
trotfios 9jv i/xol <retpa<p6pos, ' when yoked he was ever to me a ready trace-horse.' 

8 Connecting /xera Kal KXrjfxevros with ffvvrjd\rj<rdv fxoi. It may also be con- 
nected with the remote vvvXafxfi&vov aureus : ' help them, you and Clement also.' 
On the former construction Clement and the rest of Paul's converts were partisans of 
Euodia and Syntyche, and hence it would appear that the dissension arose from 
a feeling on the part of the original members of the Church that they received 
less deference than they deserved from the later adherents. 



lxix. 28. 



5 20 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

The secret The mischief of dissension was that it broke the Church's 
of peace. p eac6j an( j banished joy, and dishonoured the Gospel. The 
remedy lay in the cultivation of a spirit of ' sweet reasonable- 
ness ' ; and this was attained by the unburdening of the 
soul at the Throne of Grace and the resolute pursuit of 
lofty ideals. 

4, 5 Rejoice in the Lord always ; again will I say it, rejoice. Let 

your sweet reasonableness 1 be known to all men. The Lord 

6 is nigh. Be anxious about nothing, but in everything by 

prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests 

Cf. Jo. i. 7 be made known in God's presence. And the peace of God, 

i, 2 (Gk.). which transcends all understanding, will be the warden of 

your hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus. 

8 For the rest, brothers, all that is true, all that is dignified, 
all that is righteous, all that is pure, all that is lovely, all that 
is winsome, whatever virtue there may be and whatever 

9 praise, take these things into your reckoning. All that you 
learned and received and heard and saw in me, put in practice ; 
and God, the Giver of Peace, will be with you. 

Acknow- One matter remains — the monetary relief which the 
oah? ent Philippians had sent the Apostle, and he acknowledges it 
Phaippian j n a f ew sentences which only a gentleman could have 
written — a rare blending of gratitude, dignity, and humour. 
They had explained, somewhat grandiloquently, their 
apparent neglect — the tardy ' revival of their drooping 
mindfulness ' of him ; and he accepts their apology. He 
was glad of their gift ; not for the relief which it afforded, 
since he had learned to endure privation, but for the assur- 
ance which it conveyed of their constant kindness. And he 
thanks them for it. It was like them to send it. Some ten 
years previously, when he was driven out of Macedonia, 2 
they alone had considered his need and ' settled accounts ' 
with him. He uses this phrase significantly, indicating that 
their contribution was no charity. It was a debt which 
they owed him for his precious service of them, and had 
they disowned it, they would have been the losers. And now 
that they have sent him another payment, he playfully writes 

1 rb intends (rj erie^a), the quality which, according to Matthew Arnold, 
distinguished Jesus, the temper which maintained His 'sure balance.' Cf. 
2 Cor. x. i. 

t Cf. p. 15a. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 521 

a formal receipt : ' Paid in full ; received from Epaphroditus.' 
At the same time their gift was hallowed by their love. It 
was more than a payment ; it was a fragrant offering, and 
it would win them God's rich blessing. 

10 Now it re j oiced me greatly in the Lord that ' at long last ' yo u 
had ' revived your drooping mindfulness of me/ And in this 
connection you were indeed mindful of me all the while, but 

1 1 you never had an opportunity. Not that I am speaking under 
pressure of want ; for I have learned, whatever my circum- 

12 stances, to be content. I know how to be brought low; I know 
how to be affluent. Into each and every experience I have 
been initiated — fulness and hunger, affluence and want. 

13 1 have strength for everything in Him who puts power into 
i4i 15 me. Yet thank you for participating in my distress. 1 And 

you Philippians know as well as I do that in the early 

days of the Gospel, when I quitted Macedonia, no Church 
16 settled accounts with me 2 but you alone. For not 

only at Thessalonica but again and yet again you sent me 
17 help in need. Not that I am seeking after your gift ; no, 

it is the interest which accumulates to your account that 
18 1 am seeking after. I am paid in full, 3 and I am affluent. 

My wants are all supplied now that I have received from 

Epaphroditus what you sent me, ' an odour of a sweet Ex. xxix. 

fragrance,' a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God. l8 J Ez » 

19 And my God will supply all your need according to His x " 41, 

20 riches in glory in Christ Jesus. And to our God and 
Father be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

ai Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are 

22 with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially 
those belonging to Caesar's household. 

23 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your 
spirit. 

It was toward the close of the year 60 when Epaphroditus The 
took his departure for Philippi, carrying the letter with him. ^^ nera 
The Apostle would miss his gracious and helpful presence, panions. 



1 /caXuJs iroieTv, a Common Greek colloquialism, frequent in papyri, (i) The 
aor. 'thank you.' Cf. Ac. x. 33. Oxyrh. Pap. 1066, 3: xaXws fikv i-rroirjo- at 
6.iro<Trl\as fioi t^v plvyv, 'thank you for sending me the file.' The fut. 'please.' 
Cf . 3 Jo. 6. Oxyrh. Pap. 300, 5 : kciXuJs Toirjjeis avTt<f>u)vfi<ra<r& fxoi 8ti iKo/xt<rov t 
' please send me a reply that you received it.' 

8 els \6yov 56<reo)i xal Xifrt^ewt, 'on the score of payment and receipt.' Cf. 
Moulton and Milligan, Vocab. 

* In Common Greek airix® (cf. Mt. vi. 2), ' I have received it,' was the 
technical acknowledgment of payment. Atox^, 'a receipt' Cf. Oxyrh. Pap. 
91, 25 : Kvpla 1) Aroxfit 'the receipt is valid.' 



522 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

but he was not left alone. Timothy was with him, and by 
cf. coi. iv. a nd by others joined him. Luke and Aristarchus returned 
Fhm. 24. from their expeditions with the old kindness in their hearts. 
It seems that his health had been impaired by his long 
confinement, his ceaseless employment, and his wearing 
anxiety ; and thus the advent of ' the beloved physician ' 
was doubfy welcome. Aristarchus too did his part. So 
assiduous was he in his tendance, never quitting the Apostle's 
cf. Coi. iv. chamber, that the latter playfully styled him ' my fellow- 
captive.' Another arrival was Demas. He seems to have 
Cf. 2 Tim. belonged to Thessalonica ; and since his name is coupled 
iv. 10. y^fti Luke's, it may be presumed that he had accompanied 
the latter from Macedonia, conveying doubtless his Church's 
sympathy. He is merely mentioned without commendation, 
and this evident coldness is justified by the part which he 
subsequently played. 
Arrival of Time wore away, and the year 61 would be nearing its 
and 11 K close when the Apostle was gladdened by a welcome surprise. 
Tychicus. jt was th e arrival of John Mark who ten years previously 
had occasioned the tragic rupture between him and his 
noble-hearted comrade Barnabas. 1 Of Mark's doings during 
the interval there is no record, but it is plain that he had 
redeemed his character. Though a Jew, he was loyal to 
Cf. Coi. iv. Paul's Gentile Gospel ; and since in the immediate sequel he 
fvl'ii. u is found ministering in the Province of Asia, the likelihood 
is that it was thence that he had come to Rome. Nor is it 
Cf. E P h. without suggestion that another who appears on the scene 
Coulv. 7) at this juncture is Tychicus the Ephesian. He was one of 
8 - the deputies who accompanied the Apostle to Jerusalem in 

the spring of 57 to present the Gentile contributions for the 
poor Christians in the Sacred Capital ; and when his errand 
was accomplished he had returned to Ephesus. There, 
probably, he had encountered Mark ; and when the latter 
was apprised of his intention to visit Rome, he would 
propose to accompany him that he might make his peace 
Cf. 2 Tim. with the Apostle. The reconciliation was complete ; and 
Paul not merely renewed the old fellowship with him but 
cf. coi. iv. publicly absolved him by writing to the Churches of Asia 
and commending him to their confidence. 

1 Cf. p. 117. 



10 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 523 

Nor should it go unnoticed that there was yet another who j*sus 
cheered the Apostle during his weary captivity — Jesus, a*" 51118, 
Jewish Christian, who, after the fashion of that period, 1 Cf Col. iv. 
bore also the Gentile name of Justus. Since he is an unknown "' 
personage, and thus can hardly have been a provincial 
deputy, he was probably a member of the Roman Church ; 
and this invested him with an honourable distinction. He 
was the only Jewish Christian in the city who befriended the 
Apostle : all the rest were Judaists. 

It was a serious errand that had brought Tychicus to Heresy in 
Rome. A heresy had arisen in the Province of Asia and tince™ 
was working deadly mischief in the Church ; and he had Asia - 
been deputed to convey the tidings to the Apostle and 
obtain his counsel. The intelligence was no surprise to Paul ; 
for he had long foreseen the evil. Already during his ministry 
at Ephesus he had perceived the trend of thought ; and 
four years previously, in the message to the Churches of Cf. Rom. 
Asia annexed to his encyclical on Justification by Faith, J 
he had sounded a note of warning, and he had repeated it cf. Ac. xx. 
with stronger urgency in his moving address to the Ephesian 29> 3 °" 
Elders at Miletus. And now he learns that his forebodings 
have been realised. 

What was the heresy ? It was the initial phase of that incipient 
subtle philosophy which was known in after days as c ism Stl 
Gnosticism. Gnosticism was, at all events in the domain of 
Gentile Christianity, a fusion of Oriental theosophy and Greek 
philosophy ; and it was natural that it should have its home 
in the Province of Asia, that borderland betwixt East and 
West. It were indeed illegitimate to anticipate later de- 
velopments and identify the heresy which confronted the 
Apostle with the elaborate, complex, and fantastic system 
which flourished in the second century ; at the same time 
it were no less illegitimate to ignore their affinity. Systems 
are never born in a day, and the full-blown Gnosticism which 
appears on the pages of St. Irenaeus was no sudden growth 
but the development of ideas which had been operative for 
generations. It were reasonable to assume a priori that they 
had already emerged in the Apostle's day, and the assumption 
is historically attested. Thus, according to St. Irenaeus, 2 the 

1 Cf. p. ai. * IV. li. 3 ; cf. in, prafat. 



524 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



The pro- 
blem of 
God's re- 
lation to 
the world. 



Gnostic 
theory 
of emana- 
tions. 

Cf. Rom. 
viii. 38 ; 
Col. i. 16. 



Eph. vi. 12 



Gnostics were disciples of Simon Magus, ' the father of all 
heretics ' ; and Hippolytus early in the third century 
designates the Gnostic sect of the Ophites or Naasenes ' the 
progenitors of subsequent heresies ' and places them in the 
order of his discussion before Simon Magus and before 
Cerinthus, the Apostle John's adversary during his ministry 
at Ephesus. 1 Hence it is no mere surmise but an historical 
fact that Gnosticism had already appeared in the days of 
the Apostles. It was indeed still undeveloped, but its 
characteristic ideas were thus early in vogue ; and it was 
these that were disturbing the Churches of Asia and engaged 
Paul's attention. 

Its basal principle was that persistent postulate of ancient 
thought — the inherent and essential evil of matter ; and this 
presented the twofold problem of the mode of creation and 
the relation of God to the world. If the world were God's 
direct creation out of nothing or an immediate emanation 
from His own essence, then He would be the author of evil. 
And if He be perfect goodness and purity, then it is impossible 
for Him to have contact with evil and impure matter. 
There is thus a wide gulf between God and the world ; and 
the question was how that gulf should be bridged. 

The answer was furnished by a theory of successive 
emanations, a series of intermediaries between God and the 
world. These were the csons, a hierarchy of angels designated 
' thrones,' ' lordships,' ' principalities,' ' authorities,' and 
' powers,' and inhabiting, in order of dignity, ' the heavenly 
regions ' which rose, tier above tier, to the Throne of God. 2 
The pleroma or ' fulness ' dwelt in God, and it was weaker 
in each successive emanation until the lowest rank was 
reached — ' the world-making angels,' 3 ' the rulers of this 



1 Refut. v. 6 ; VI. I. 

* According to Test, of Levi (cf. p. 335) in the Sixth Heaven are the Arch- 
angels, the Angels of the Presence ; in the Fifth the Messengers of God, who 
bear the prayers of men to the Angels of the Presence ; in the Fourth Thrones 
and Authorities, the Holy Ones ; in the Third the hosts of avenging angels. 
Orig. De Princip. 1. v. 3 (Latin translation) specifies, in ascending order, (1) the 
Holy Angels {sancti angeli), (2) Principalities {principal As, &pxai), (3) Powers 
{potestateS) ovvafit^), (4) Thrones {throni), (5) Lordships (dominationes, 

KVplOTT/TIs). 

9 Kotx/xowoiol HyyeXot (cf. Iren. 1. xix ; xx. i). 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 525 

dark world, the spiritual hosts of wickedness,' under Satan, 

' the aon of this world, the Prince of the authority of the Eph. h. a. 

air/ 

Fantastic as the theory appears, it was no frivolous a ruinous 
speculation. It was, on the contrary, a serious attempt to eresy ' 
solve an ancient and abiding problem — the problem of the 
origin of evil ; 1 and it stimulated much profitable inquiry 
in the course of the early Christian centuries. Nevertheless 
it was a pernicious heresy, and, had it prevailed, the Faith 
must have perished. How widely it diverged from Chris- 
tianity appears by its very name. It was the doctrine of 
gnosis or ' knowledge/ and its advocates distinguished 
themselves from the simple multitude who had only * faith ' 
by assuming the designation of ' Gnostics/ 2 They were 
' the spiritual ' or ' the perfect/ 8 while mere believers, 
uninitiated into the mysteries of the gnosis, were ' the 
animal/ 4 It was just the old distinction between the 
esoterics and the exoterics in the philosophic schools, a revival 
of the spirit of caste which the Gospel had exorcised. 

The poison of the heresy lay in its dualism, and its mischief (1) its 
was both theological and ethical. In the former connection thTincar- 
it struck at the very foundation of the Faith. Since matter nation - 
was essentially evil, there could be no true Incarnation. 
Christ was not God manifest in the flesh, ' the fulness of 
deity embodied/ but merely an ceon, an angelic intermediary. Cf. Eph. 
This pernicious doctrine had already emerged in Paul's coi.'i^s- 
day ; and it was subsequently developed by Cerinthus. * 9, & jj-ia 
1 He alleged/ says St. Irenaeus, 5 ' that the world had not 
been made by the First God, but by a power separate 
and remote from the Authority which is over the Universe, 
and ignorant of the God who is over all. And Jesus, he 
supposed, had not been begotten of a virgin, but He had 
been born of Joseph and Mary, a son, in like manner to all 
the rest of men, and had become more righteous and wise. 
And after His Baptism the Christ descended into Him from 
the Sovereignty which is over the Universe, in the form of a 

1 Cf. Tert. De Prescript. 7 ; Adv. Marc. I. 2 ; Eus. Hist. Eccl. V. 27. 

* Cf. Iren. I. i. II ; Clem. Alex. Strom. 11, iii, 10. 

* cl Trj>€vpi.a.TiKoi, ot riXetot (cf. n. on I Cor. ii. 6, p. 248). 

* oi \pvxiKol (cf. n. on 1 Cor. ii. 14, p. 249). * I. xxf. 



526 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

dove ; and then He proclaimed the unknown Father and 
accomplished miracles ; and at the end the Christ withdrew 
from the Jesus ; and the Jesus had suffered and been raised, 
but the Christ had remained throughout impassible, being 
spiritual.' 
( 2 ) its un- This distinction between the Divine Christ and the human 
implicate. Jesus, who were never truly one but were merely associated 
during the three years of our Lord's ministry, is the inevitable 
issue of the theory. In Paul's day, however, the heresy was 
as yet primarily ethical, and this mischief also flowed from 
its dualistic presupposition. The argument with Gentile 
converts was that, since matter and spirit are distinct 
domains, the things of sense are, for the spiritual man, 
' indifferent/ and he is free to indulge his carnal appetities 
as he pleases. 1 This doctrine had already been urged in the 
Corinthian Church, 2 and it was professed and practised in 
cf. Rev. ii. the Churches of Asia bj^ a school of sectaries who were still 
active in the days of the Apostle John. They were known 
TbeNico- as the Nicolaitans, and they derived their name from 
Ac a vT s Nicolaus, one of the Seven Deacons. He was a Gentile, 
belonging to Syrian Antioch ; and since he had been a 
proselyte to Judaism ere his conversion to Christianity, it 
may be inferred that he was a restless spirit. At all events 
he soon went far astray. His position was defined by his 
maxim that ' we should disregard the flesh ' ; 3 and a story 
is told which illustrates his meaning. He was taunted by 
his fellow-apostles with jealousy regarding his beautiful 
wife, and he brought her forward and intimated that any 
one who would might marry her. 4 So entirely did he ' dis- 
regard the flesh.' His attitude, however, was liable to mis- 
construction. It is Clement of Alexandria who tells the 
story, and, while expressly absolving Nicolaus of personal 
incontinence, he affirms that ' the adherents of his sect 
followed up the incident and the maxim simply and in- 
considerately and committed fornication without restraint/ 
They were, he alleges elsewhere, 6 ' dissolute as he-goats/ 

1 Cf . Iren. 1. xx. 2, 3 ; II. xlix. I. * Cf. p. 238. 

* 5ti irapaxpS.<rd at ry ffaptci del. 

* Clem. Alex. Strom. 111. iv. 25 ; cf. Eus. Hist. Eccl. in. 29. 

* Ibid. 11. xx. 118. Cf. Tert. Adv. Mare. I. 29; Hippol. Phil. vn. 36. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 527 

Such scandal would have been impossible among Jewish Gentile 
Christians, disciplined by the stern ethic of the Mosaic Law ; SjSJfs" 
but this restraint was lacking in the Churches of Asia. * th,c - 
Their members were Gentiles, and it appears that they had 
travelled beyond that repudiation of moral obligation which 
the Apostle had so frequently to deplore in his converts 
from heathenism and which furnished the Judaists with so 
effective an indictment of his Gospel of Salvation by Faith. 
Judaism was nothing to them. They despised the Jews 
and ignored the historic basis of Christianity. And hence 
arose a striking reversal of the accustomed conditions. 
Hitherto it had been necessary for the Apostle to plead with 
the Jews for the recognition of the Gentiles, but now he 
has to exhibit the glory of the ancient Covenant to his 
Gentile converts and warn them against despising that 
precious heritage. 

Such was the situation which had emerged in the Province The Asian 
of Asia, and it occasioned the leaders of the Churches no appeal e 
small disquietude. It would appear that they held a repre- *° ^ s e tle 
sentative conference, and resolved to communicate with the 
Apostle. They wrote a letter in name of all the Churches, 
acquainting him with their perplexity and soliciting his 
counsel ; and they deputed Tychicus to convey it to Rome. 1 

The report was no surprise to Paul. He had detected An ency- 
symptoms of the heresy during his ministry at Ephesus, and f e Jte r . 
after his departure he had kept himself informed of its 
progress. It had engaged his anxious consideration, and 
thus he was able to deal effectively with it ; and he forthwith 
addressed himself to the task and composed an encyclical 
letter. 2 This is the letter which stands in the New Testament 

1 ko.1 vfie?s, 'you also' (vi. 21), proves that Paul had received a letter from his 
readers : they had told him of their concerns, and Tychicus would tell them of 
his. Cf. K&yib, 'I also' (i. 15). 

1 Beza was apparently the first to perceive that the letter is an encyclical. 
'Suspicor,' he says in his note on the subscription, 'non tarn ad Ephesios ipsos 
proprie missam epistolam quam Ephesum ut ad ceteras Asiaticas ecclesias trans- 
mitteretur.' The evidence is twofold. 1. The address ev 'Etpfocp (i. 1) is omitted 
by the two earliest and most authoritative MSS. (N*B), and it was absent from the 
still earlier text of Origen. Reading rots aytois rots ofxxiv koX irto-rots, he attached 
a metaphysical significance to roh od<ru>, connecting it with the Ineffable Name 
(cf. Ex. iii. 14) : ' the saints who share the essence of the Eternal.' The fact is 
that here, as in 'the Epistle to the Romans' (cf. p. 376), the address was left 



528 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Canon as ' the Epistle to the Ephesians.' It was not written 
for the Ephesians alone. It is an encyclical, and it was 
designed not exclusively for the metropolitan Church, but for 
all the others in the Province — the Churches at Smyrna, Per- 
gamos, Thyatira, Sardes, Philadelphia, Magnesia, Tralles, 
Hierapolis, Laodiceia, and Colossse. Tychicus was charged 
with its conveyance to Asia and its presentation at its 
several destinations ; and this was a large commission, 
involving extensive travel and much negotiation. His 
itineraiy was arranged. He would return to Ephesus and 
deliver the letter there ; and thence he would set forth on 
his tour of the Province. Probably he would betake him- 
self northward to Smyrna and Pergamos, and then strike 
inland to Thyatira, and thence by Sardes and Philadelphia 
to Magnesia. From Magnesia he would ascend the valley 
of the Maeander to Tralles and pursue his journey eastward 
to Hierapolis, Laodiceia, and Colossae in the valley of the 
Lycus. The letter, being an encyclical, lacked the element 
of personalia, and he was charged not merely to deliver it 
cf. vi. 2i, but to convey to each Church the affectionate greetings and 
particular counsels of the Apostle. It is unlikely that he 
was furnished with a special copy for each Church. The 
same manuscript would serve for all. A blank had been 
left in the address, and in reading it to each community 
he would supply the name ; and doubtless ere his departure 
a copy would be made and preserved for future reference 
among the Church's records. 

ENCYCLICAL TO THE CHURCHES OF ASIA 

' The Epistle to the Ephesians is evidently a catholic epistle, 
addressed to the whole of what might be called St. Paul's diocese. 
It is the divinest composition of man. It embraces every doctrine 
of Christianity; — first, those doctrines peculiar to Christianity, 
and then those precepts common to it with natural religion.' 

S. T. Coleridge. 

blank in the original draft and the destination was entered in each copy. 2. The 
absence of personalia and, more particularly, sentences like i. 15 and iii, 2 prove 
that Paul is addressing strangers and not the Church of Ephesus which he knew 
so intimately. Theod. Mops, recognised this difficulty, and evaded it by suppos- 
ing that the letter had been written to the Ephesians before the Apostie visited 
them. 



22 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 529 

After the customary address and greeting, the letter begins introduc- 
vvith an elaborate thanksgiving for the rich heritage of argument 
Christian blessings. Here the Apostle skilfully introduces 
his argument. He tacitly assails the Asian heresy by em- 
ploying several of its distinctive terms — ' spiritual/ ' the 
heavenly regions/ ' wisdom/ ' fulness ' — and exhibiting the 
true satisfaction of their claims in the Gospel. The heresy 
contrasted ' spiritual ' and ' material/ ' the heavenly regions ' 
and ' the world ' ; the Gospel unites them : ' God has 
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly 
regions in Christ.' It is not by escaping from ' the prison 
of the body ' and material environment that we attain 
spiritual perfection ; already this is ours by union with the Cf. u. 6. 
Risen Lord. 

Then he enumerates the Christian blessings. The first is The 
our eternal election in Christ ; next, its realisation in time heritage" 
— our redemption in Christ ; and, finally, the discovery in 
Christ of God's providential purpose, ' the mystery of His 
will.' In the heretical philosophy ' mystery ' signified the 
secret lore which only the ' spiritual ' knew ; but on the 
Apostle's lips it had a grander meaning. It was God's 
purpose of grace so long hidden but now gloriously manifested 
in Christ. 1 And its discovery brings ' wisdom ' — a truer 
and nobler wisdom than the heretics imagined. The wisdom 
which they flaunted was intellectual, and it went hand in 
hand with moral foulness ; but the Christian wisdom was a 
holy thing : ' He poured the riches of His grace on us to 
overflowing in wisdom and moral discernment. ' 

The discovery of ' the mystery of His will ' brought wisdom 
inasmuch as it revealed the oneness of the Universe, ' gathering 
it under one Head in the Christ ' ; but in revealing the one- 
ness of the Universe it revealed also the oneness of humanity. 
The Jews indeed possessed a peculiar prestige in their long 
history of faith in God and hope in the Promised Saviour ; 
but, though this was lacking to the Gentiles, they had heard 
the glad tidings of salvation ; faith had made it theirs ; and 
the Holy Spirit had sealed their title to the future heritage. 

i. 1 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will, to the saints 
2 who are and hold the Faith in Christ Jesus. Grace to 

1 Cf. p. 320. 
2 L 



53o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Cf. Dt 
xxxii« 9. 



you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who has blessed us with every ' spiritual ' blessing in ' the 

4 heavenly regions ' in Christ, in pursuance of His election of us 
in Him ere the world's foundation, that we might be holy and 

5 blameless in His sight. In love * He foreordained us to be 
restored to the status of sonship 2 through Jesus Christ, 

6 according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the 
glory of His grace which He lavished on us in His Beloved. 

7 And in Him we have our redemption through His blood, the 
remission of our trespasses, according to the riches of His 

8 grace, which He poured on us to overflowing in all wisdom 

9 and moral discernment 3 when He discovered to us the 
mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He 

10 purposed in Him for the establishment of a new order when the 
seasons had run their course, to gather the Universe under one 
Head in the Christ, the heavens and their belongings and the 

11 earth and all that is on it; even in Him in whom we were made 
God's heritage, having been foreordained according to the 
purpose of Him who operates the Universe according to the 

12 counsel of His will, that we might be for the praise of His 

13 glory — we who had beforehand hoped in the Christ. And in 
Him you also, on hearing the Word of Truth, the Gospel of 
your salvation — in Him you also had faith and were sealed 

14 with the Spirit of promise, the Holy Spirit, who is the earnest 
of our inheritance, 4 that God might redeem His ownership 
for the praise of His glory. 



Commen- 
dation 
of two 
truths : 



i. The Theological Question (i. 15-iii) 

And now the Apostle embarks on his argument. He 
courteously reciprocates the kindness which the letter from 
Asia had expressed, and assures his readers of his warm 
regard. With most of them indeed he had no personal 
acquaintance ; but he had heard of their faith and love 
during his sojourn at Ephesus, and since his departure his 

1 So Chrys., Theod. Mops., Theodrt., construing ev dydtrrj with irpoopi<ras. 
Otherwise either (i) with i^eX^aro, 'elected us ... in -love' (Oecum.), or (2) 
with ayiovs /cat a/j-dbfiovs, 'holy and blameless in love' (Ambrstr., Vulg. ). 

• Cf. n. on Gal. iv. 5, p. 209. 

• ao<pia is theoretical, (ppoprjcns practical. Cf. Plat. Def. : <TO<pia imar-fii-ir) 
&vvir6d€T0$' ixKrTrjfiT) t<2v del 6vtwV iiriarrifjirf BebjpijTiKTj tt)s t<2v ovtuv alrias. 
fp6vr]<ns 5uvapus ttqitjtikt] Ka$' ai>Tr)i> rrjs dvdp&irov evdoufxovlas' iwiarrj/XT] iya0Qy 
k<U kakQv ' 6id9e<rit tcad' fy Kplvopev tL vpaKTiov xal ri oi vpuKriov. Arist. Eth 
Nic. VI. 7. * Cf. p. 349- 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 531 

interest in them had never flagged. It was his constant 
prayer that they might miss nothing of their rich heritage in 
Christ. 

Here, with the heresy in view, he introduces two profound (1) The 
truths. The first is the Universal Sovereignty of the Risen sover"* 
Christ. Observe how here and throughout his argument he ^Risen 
speaks not of ' Christ ' but of ' the Christ/ and, in view of Christ, 
the doctrine which Cerinthus ere long advocated and which 
was already in vogue, identifies Him with the human Jesus, 
who died and was raised from the dead. The Christ was 
truly incarnate. He was no mere ceon, no mere link in a 
chain of angelic intermediaries between God and the world. 
He is the Supreme Lord enthroned evermore at God's 
right hand ' above every " principality " and " authority ' 
and " power " and " lordship " and every name in vogue.' 

And with this truth he links another — Christ's Headship (2) His 
over the Church. The idea is not an absolute novelty. verthe P 
Already he has spoken of the corporate unity of Christians, Church - 
likening them, in their mutual relationships, to members oiyj/^^gj 
one body; 1 but here he enlarges the conception. Christ ?j J - I2 -3* ; 
is the Living Head, and the Church is His Body, ' the fulness 4. s- 
of Him who fills the Universe in every part.' It is the 
perpetuation of the Incarnation. What the flesh was to the 
Lord in His humiliation, that the Church is in His exaltation. 
And thus there is no impassable gulf between God and the 
world. 

15 Therefore I too, since I heard of the faith in the Lord Jesua 
which prevails among you and the love which you have for all 

1 6 the saints, never cease to give thanks on your behalf, making 

1 7 mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom 

18 and revelation in full knowledge of Him; the eyes of your 
heart being so enlightened that you may know what is the hope 
of His calling, what is the riches of the glory of His ' inheritance Dt. xxxiii. 

19 m the saints,' and what is the surpassing greatness of His 3- 4- 
power for us who have faith according to the operation of His 

20 strength's might which He has exhibited in the Christ by 
raising Him from the dead and ' seating Him at His right ps. ex, 1. 

21 hand ' in ' the heavenly regions ' far above every ' principality ' 
and ' authority ' and ' power ' and ' lordship ' and every name 

«2 in vogue, not only in this but in the future age. And He ' put Ps. vtfi. & 

1 Cf. p. 291. 



532 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

everything in subjection under His feet/ and gave Him to the 
23 Church as her Supreme Head — the Church which is His Body, 
the ' fulness ' of Him who fills the Universe in every part. 

Life by This thought completes the argument. Christ is the 

chdst Wlth Church's Head, and she is His Body in vital union with Him. 
His people, Gentiles and Jews alike, once ' dead through 
their trespasses and sins,' now share His life, His resurrection, 
His enthronement ' in the heavenly regions/ ' Because/ 
says St. Augustine, 1 ' your Head has risen, hope, you other 
members, for this which you see in your Head. It is an 
ancient and true proverb : " Where the head is, the other 
members are too/' Christ has ascended into Heaven, and 
thither we shall follow/ 

li. 1 And you, when you were dead through your trespasses 

2 and sins, in which you once comported yourselves according 
to ' the (Bon of this world/ according to ' the Prince of the 
authority of the air/ the spirit who is now operating in the 

3 sons of disobedience — and in them we too were all once 
occupied in the lusts of our flesh, doing all that our flesh 
and our thoughts would ; and we were by nature children 

4 of wrath like the rest. But God, rich as He is in mercy, 

5 because of the great love with which He loved us, dead 
though we were through our trespasses, made us alive with 

6 the Christ — it is by grace that you have been saved — and 
raised us with Him and seated us with Him in ' the 

7 heavenly regions ' in Christ Jesus, that He might demon- 
strate in the ages to come the surpassing riches of His 

8 grace by His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For it is 
by grace that you have been saved through faith ; and that 

9 not of yourselves : it is God's gift ; not of works, that no 
10 one may boast. For we are His making, created in Christ 

Jesus for good works, which God had arranged beforehand 
that we might comport ourselves in them. 

Reconciiia- It is not without design that the Apostle here introduces 
jews and his doctrine of Salvation by Faith. He is about to deal with 
uenuies: ano ther aspect of the situation — the cavalier attitude which 
the Churches of Asia had adopted toward Judaism ; and 
lest his remonstrance should be misconstrued, it was well 
that he should preface it with a reaffirmation of his Gospel 
of free grace. The Asian Christians were predominantly, 

1 In Psalm. XXIX Eruzrr. ii. 14. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 533 

if not exclusively, converts from heathenism ; and they knew 
the Jews only as their Apostle's adversaries and bitter 
assailants of their own title to salvation. It was natural 
that they should retaliate and disdain the Jews and the 
Jewish religion. And the mischief was twofold. The 
Church was rent in twain/and the agelong estrangement 
which Christ had come to heal was perpetuated. And the 
Gentiles were themselves the chief sufferers. For the 
Jewish Faith was a precious heritage. It was the historic 
basis of the Gospel ; and when they ignored it and construed 
Christianity in terms of human speculation, they were 
forsaking the fountains of heavenly wisdom and turning 
the Gospel into a barren philosophy. 

The Apostle confronts this twofold danger with a magnifi- (1) The 
cent conception — the Commonwealth of God. It was W eaUh°of" 
originally an Old Testament ideal. Israel was a theocracy, God - 
and the holy nation was the Commonwealth of God. Its 
citizens were the Chosen People, and the rest of the nations 
were aliens. But the Gospel had enlarged the ideal. The 
boundaries of the Commonwealth of God had been extended, 
and they included not Israel alone but humanity. Christ 
had revealed ' the mystery of God's will,' His eternal purpose 
of universal grace. He had healed the enmity between Jews 
and Gentiles and ' reconciled them both in one Body to God.' 

And, as has already appeared, this larger and nobler imperial 
ideal had been revealed to the Apostle by his imperial ^of the 
environment. Rome was the capital of the world, the church. 
fountain of law and civilisation, the centre whence so 
many highways radiated, like rich arteries, carrying their 
vitalising streams to the remotest province. All the nations, 
in themselves strangers and foreigners, were united in her, 
and each shared her glory, her strength, her peace. And 
here he recognised an emblem of the Commonwealth of God 
and rose to a loftier conception of the Church. It is significant 
that in his earlier letters the term ' church ' denotes a par- 
ticular community. Thus, in the year 51 he addressed ' the 1 Th. i. 1; 
Church of the Thessalonians ' ; in the year 53 ' the Churches Q^i/i. 1 ' 
of Galatia,' meaning the Christian communities of Pisidian 
Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe ; and in the years 55 1 Cor. 1 2 ; 
and 56 ' the Church of God which is at Corinth.' But now 2Cor * 



534 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

he employs a new style. The Church is in his thought no 
longer a particular community of Christians, nor even the 
sum of all the communities. She is the Body of Christ, her 
Sovereign Head ; she is the Commonwealth of God, embrac- 
ing in her universal citizenship all the faithful on earth and in 
Heaven. And thus he addresses, not ' the Church of the 
Phil. i. i. Philippians ' or ' the Church of the Colossians/ but ' all the 
Coi. i. 2. saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi ' and ' the saints 

and faithful brothers at Colossae.' 

(2) The It is a noble conception, yet it failed to satisfy the Apostle. 

Temple. It seemed too secular ; it needed consecration. And so he 

glides into another ideal. The Church is more than a 

cf. i Cor. Commonwealth ; she is a Living Temple. Christ is the 

is! xxViii. foundation or, in the prophetic phrase, ' the chief corner- 

iVeMi. 6 stone,' which signifies * the primary foundation-stone at the 

angle of the structure by which the architect fixes a standard 

for the bearings of the walls and cross- walls throughout.' l 

On that foundation the spiritual fabric is reared. Stone is 

added to stone, not only the Apostles and Prophets — the 

men who had companied with the Saviour and their fellows 

who were inspired by the Holy Spirit — but all faithful* souls. 

And thus the Living Temple grows from age to age toward 

its glorious completion. 

11 And therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the 

flesh, ' the Uncircumcision ' as you are called by what is called 

Cf. Rom. ' the Circumcision,' a circumcision made with the hand in the 

11. 28, 29. I2 fl^ — ^^ y OU were a t that season apart from Christ, alienated 

from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the 

Covenants of the Promise ; no hope had you and no God in 

is. lvii. 19. 13 the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were ' far 

off ' have been brought ' nigh ' in the blood of the Christ. 

14 For He it is that is our peace, He who made both one and 

pulled down the wall which fenced off one from the other, 2 

J aicpoyuptcuos, cf. Moulton and Milligan, Vocab. 

1 The area of the Temple at Jerusalem was divided into two courts, the outer 
and the inner, separated by a balustrade three cubits in height, with pillars at 
regular intervals on which was inscribed in Latin and Greek an intimation that 
no alien (a\\6<pv\ov) might pass into the inner court but on pain of death (cf. 
Jos. De Bell. Jud. v. v. 2 ; Ant. xv. xi. 5). One of these pillars with its 
Greek inscription was discovered by M. Clermont-Ganneau in 187 1 (cf. Schiirer, 
Jewish People, 11. i. p. 266). This is doubtless the reference of to (j.eo~6o~Toixov 
rod (ppay/xov, and it would appeal all the more to the Gentile Christians of Asia, 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 535 

15 even the enmity between them, by invalidating in His flesh 
the Law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He 
might in Himself create the two into one new man, thus making 

16 peace, and might reconcile them both in one Body to God 

1 7 through the Cross, slaying the enmity by it. And He came is. in. 7. 
and ' preached the Gospel of peace to you who were far off and lvu> * 9- 

1 8 peace to those who were nigh.' For through Him we have 
both of us the entree 1 in one Spirit to the Father. 

19 So, then, you are no longer strangers and sojourners. No, 
you are the saints' fellow-citizens and members of God's house- 

20 hold. You have been built upon the foundation of the Apostles 
and Prophets, 2 the ' chief corner-stone ' being Christ Jesus 

21 Himself. And in Him all the building, 3 being welded together, 

22 grows into a holy temple in the Lord. And in Him you also 
are being built together into a habitation of God in the Spirit. 

The Apostle has now completed his discussion of the a per- 
speculative aspect of the heresy; and his heart prompts Appeal and 
him to a devotional conclusion, a prayer for the establish- a P ra yo"- 
ment of the Churches in the truth. He introduces it by 
reminding his readers of the proof which he had given them 
of his devotion to their eternal welfare, and the title which 
this conferred upon him to their grateful and affectionate 
regard. He was ' the prisoner of Christ Jesus on their 
behalf — if indeed,' he adds, ' you have heard of the steward- 
ship of that grace of God which was given me for you.' He 
is not here suggesting a doubt. Of course they had heard of 
it, and knew what his devotion in the cause of the Gentiles 
had cost him. And this constitutes his plea : ' If you know, 
you must hearken to my appeal.' The thought of the trust 

since it was Paul's supposed violation of the prohibition by introducing their 
countryman Trophimus into the inner court that had occasioned the riot at 
Jerusalem and his subsequent imprisonment (cf. Ac. xxi. 28). 
1 Cf. n. on Rom. v, 2, p. 400. 

* Not (1) 'the foundation which consists of the Apostles and Prophets' 
(Chrys. : tovt4cti, Oe^Xiot oi airoaroXoi Kal oi irpotprJT at), since Christ is the 
foundation (1 Cor. iii. n), nor (2) 'the foundation which they have laid' 
(Ambrstr.), since it is God that lays the foundation (cf. Is. xxviii. 16), but 'the 
foundation on which they are built and on which you also are built in their 
goodly company.' 'The Prophets' are here, as the order proves, not the ancient 
(cf. Ambrstr. : ' hoc est, supra novum et vetus Testamentum collocati ') but the 
Christian Prophets (cf. p. 72), who were reckoned next in dignity to the Apostles 
(cf. iv. 11 ; 1 Cor. xii. 28). 

* wdcra 77 qIko5o,u.7) N a ACP. The more strongly attested tracra oUoSofi^, ' every 
building,' 'each part of the building' (cf. Mt. xxiv. 1), would denote each 
separate Christian community. 



536 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

which had been committed to him diverts him for a brief 
space from his purpose, and he lingers over it and reiterates 
that grand conception of ' the mystery of the Christ/ His 
discovery, to ' His holy Apostles and Prophets,' of God's 
universal grace. Here Paul not merely includes himself 
in that august fellowship but arrogates to himself a unique 
position, inasmuch as he had been specially charged with 
the proclamation of the mystery. And, lest, his claim should 
seem to savour of boastfulness, he hastens to avow his sense 
of personal unworthiness : ' To me, the very least of all 
saints, was this grace given.' Nor, when he spoke of his 
sufferings on their behalf, would he have the Churches fancy 
that he grudged these. His Apostleship was a supreme 
honour, and it was worth all and more than all that it had 
cost him. 

lii. i For this reason I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus on 

2 behalf of you Gentiles * — if indeed you have heard of the 
stewardship of that grace of God which was given me 

3 for you, how that by revelation was the mystery dis- 
Cf - »• 9- covered to me, as I have already written in a brief 

4 sentence, in view of which you can, in reading the 
Scriptures, 2 perceive what I understand by ' the mystery 

5 of Christ,' which in former generations was not dis- 
covered to the sons of men as it is now revealed to His 

6 holy Apostles and Prophets in the Spirit, that the 
Gentiles share with us in the Inheritance and belong 
to the same Body and participate with us in the Promise 

t in Christ Jesus through the Gospel, of which I was made 
a minister according to the bounteousness 3 of the grace of 
God which was given me according to the operation of His 

8 power. To me, the very least of all saints, was given this 
grace — to preach to the Gentiles the untrackable riches 

9 of the Christ, and to show in clear light what my steward- 
ship is — the stewardship of the mystery which from age 
to age has been hidden in God, the Creator of the Universe, 

io that now may be discovered to ' the principalities ' and 
1 the authorities ' in ' the heavenly regions,' through the 

* The sentence is resumed at ver. 14 after the digression (vers. 2-13). 

* bvayvwais (cf. I Tim. iv. 13 ; Mt. xxiv. 15) was the public reading of the Law 
and the Prophets in the Christian assemblies according to the synagogal practice 
(cf. Lk. iv. 16-20 ; Ac. xiii. 15 ; 2 Cor. iii. 14). Paul means that, if the)' kept 
his doctrine of 'the mystery of Christ' in view during the reading of the O. T., 
they would find it corroborated 81& ypcup&v vpotprjTLKuv (cf. Rom. xvi. 25, 26). 

* ttjv Scopedu, cf. n. on Rom. v. 15, p. 407. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 537 

11 Church, the richly woven ' wisdom ' of God, according 
to the agelong purpose which He has achieved in Christ 

12 Jesus our Lord, in whom we have such boldness and such 

13 a confident entree through our faith in Him. And there- 
fore I ask you never to lose heart amid my distresses on 
your behalf ; for these are your glory. 

14 For this reason I bend my knees in the presence of God Cf. Phil. ir. 

15 the Father, from whom all ' fatherhood ' in heaven and 6 ' 

16 on earth derives its name, 1 that He may grant you, 
according to the riches of His glory, to be mightily endued 
with power through His Spirit to the inmost core of your 

17 being, that the Christ may dwell through faith in your 

18 hearts, so that, rooted and founded in love, you may 
have the strength to grasp, with all the saints, in its 

19 breadth and length and height and depth, and to know, 
though it surpasses knowledge, the Christ's love, that you 
may be filled up to all ' the fulness ' of God. 

20 And to Him who has all-transcendent power to do far, 
far beyond our requests or thoughts, according to the 

21 ' power ' which is operative in us, to Him be the glory in 
the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations age after 
age. Amen. 



2. The Ethical Question (iv-vi. 20) 

And now the Apostle turns to the ethical aspect of the 1. Dissen- 
heresy. The trouble which it had created in this connection S10n ' 
was twofold. It had, in the first place, excited a bitter 
controversy, and the Churches were rent by fierce animosities. 
This temper the Apostle rebukes by reiterating and elabor- 
ating his conception of the corporate unity of the Church. 
Christ was her Living Head, and she w 7 as His Body. There 
was one Body and there was one Spirit, and it behoved the 
members to ' maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of 
peace.' 

There was room indeed for infinite diversity, since to each 
member a peculiar function was assigned, and the Risen 
Lord had bestowed on the Church all the rich and various 

1 The Heavenly Fatherhood is the archetype of all earthly fatherhood. Cf. 
Theodrt. : 6 V ? aXrjdus virdpxei irar^p &s ov 7rap' #\\ou touto \aft&v £% et <*X\' avrbt 
rots dWoit fieTadidwKe tovto. irarpid is here pat emit as (Vulg.), not gens, 'family,' 
* tribe' (cf. Lk. ii. 4; Ac. iii. 25). In the latter sense -rrdaa 7rar/)td would signify 
1 every family' (R.V.), not 'the whole family' (A.V.), which would be irdaa if 
rarpid (cf. ii, 21). 



538 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

gifts which He had won by His redemptive conflict, according 
to the Psalmist's word : 

' He ascended on high and led captive a train of captives ; 
He gave gifts to men.' 

The quotation diverts the Apostle for a moment from his 
argument, and he pauses to indicate its Christological 
significance, employing that Rabbinical manner of exegesis 
which he had learned in the school of Gamaliel. He saw r 
in the passage an affirmation of the reality of the Incarna- 
tion and a refutation of the dualistic heresy. The Lord's 
' ascension ' implied His previous ' descent.' ' He descended/ 
says he, quoting from another psalm, ' " into the lowest 
parts of the earth," ' that is, into the darkness of the womb. 
There He was clothed in mortal flesh ; and when He re- 
ef, i. 20. ascended to His seat at God's right hand, He carried with 
Him His glorified humanity. And thus had the gulf between 
God and man been bridged, not by a hierarchy of angelic 
intermediaries but by the Incarnate Lord. 

From this digression he returns to his argument. The 
gifts of the Exalted Redeemer were manifold. There were 
various offices in the Church of larger or lesser dignity, 
but these all served the self-same end — ' the knitting of the 
saints together, the upbuilding of the Body of the Christ ' ; 
and there was no occasion for rivalry or jealousy. It was 
only as each member discharged his proper office that he 
shared the corporate life and attained his full Christian 
manhood. 

iv. 1 I beseech you, then — I, the prisoner in the Lord — that 
you comport yourselves worthily of the call which you have 

2 received, with all humility and meekness, with long-suffering, 

3 forbearing one another in love, earnest to maintain the 

4 unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one Body, 
and there is one Spirit, just as there was one hope which 

5 your call inspired when you received it ; there is one Lord, 

6 one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who 
rules all, wields all, and pervades all. 

f Yet to every one of us was grace given as it was measured 
8 out by the bounteousness of the Christ. And therefore the 
Spirit says : 

Ps. lxviii. ' He ascended on high and led captive a train of captives; 

* 8 « He gave gifts to men/ 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 539 

9 Now what does ' He ascended ' mean but that He also 
10 ' descended ' into ' the lowest parts of the earth ' ? * The Ps cxxxh 
very One who ' descended ' is also the One who ' ascended ' **• 
far above all the heavens, that He might ' fill ' the Universe. 

11 And He it is that ' gave ' here Apostles, there Prophets, 

12 there Evangelists, there Pastors and Teachers, 2 to knit the 
saints together 3 for the work of ministration, for the up- 

13 building of the Body of the Christ, until we all of us attain 
to the unity of the Faith and of the full knowledge of the 

1 els r(St Kariirara ttjs yijs, cf. Ps. cxxxix. 15 : ev rots Karwrdrct) (v. 1. KaTwrdroij) 
ttjs yr/s. If the phrase be a quotation from the psalm, then /carcirara should be 
preferred to the more strongly attested Karcorepa. In any case fitpi] is a manifest 
gloss. The interpretation of the passage is much disputed. 1. The Fathers 
generally (Iren., Tert., Hieron., Ambrstr.) find here a reference to the Descensus 
ad Inferos, the belief, so picturesquely presented in the apocryphal Evang. Nicod. 
and incorporated in the Apostles' Creed (c. a.d. 500), that during the three days 
between His Death and His Resurrection, while His body lay in the sepulchre, 
our Lord descended to Hades, where the souls of the saints of old were kept 
imprisoned until their redemption was accomplished, and brought them forth in 
triumph. This was known in mediaeval English as ' the Harrowing ' or ' Harrying 
of Hell' (cf. Chaucer, Milleres Tale, 3512). In its earliest form the idea was 
that His errand was exclusively to the saints of Israel, the righteous who had 
believed the promise of His coming, from Adam to John the Baptist (cf. Just. M. 
Dial, cum Tryph. Jud., Sylb. ed., p. 298; Iren. in. xxii, xxxii. I ; iv. xlii. 4; 
v. xxxi ; Tert. De Anim. 55) ; but by and by a larger hope was cherished. 
( 1 ) It had been a fancy of Hernias, early in 2 nd c , that the Apostles also had 
descended and preached to the departed and given them the seal of Baptism 
(Sim. IX. xvi), and Clem. Alex., with characteristic large-heartedness, seized 
upon it and supposed that, whereas the Lord had preached in Hades to righteous 
Jews, the Apostles had preached to virtuous heathen {Strom. VI. vi. 45 ; cf. II. 
ix. 44). (2) Still later it was held, with a yet wider charity, that the Lord's 
preaching in Hades was addressed to all its captives ; and Augustine, while 
refraining from dogmatism, expresses his sympathy with the idea (cf. Epist. clxiv). 
If the Apostle were indeed referring here to the Descensus ad Inferos, his 
argument would be that Christ had established a universal dominion — from the 
depth of Hell to the height of Heaven. But the reference is more than dubious. 
The idea of the Descensus is a later growth, alien from N. T., even, on a just 
interpretation, from I Pet. iii. 19, iv. 6. It first appears, though vaguely, in 
Ign. ad Magn. ix. 2. Chrys. and Theod. Mops, understand by the Lord's 
descent ' into the lowest parts of the earth ' His death and burial ; and tkis is the 
view of most modern interpreters. 3. Though it has found little acceptance, 
there is good reason for the view of Witsius, Beza, and others, who recognise here 
a quotation of the Psalmist's phrase (cxxxix. 15), which signifies 'in the darkness 
of the womb ' (cf. ^sch. Eum. 635 : ev <tkotol<xl vrjdtios redpafi/j^vrj). The passage 
is thus an affirmation of the Incarnation (cf. Gal. iv. 4 ; Jo. i. 14), most relevant 
to the Apostle's argument in view of the heretical denial of its possibility. 

8 iroifiives, ' shepherds,' were the Overseers (eiriaKowoi) or Presbyters (cf. n, on 
Ac. xx. 28, p. 463) ; diddcncaXoi, the Catechists (cf. pp. 80, 218). 

* irpbs tqv KaTapri<rj.t,bv tuiv ayiwv, cf. n. on I Th. iii. IO, p. l6l. 



S40 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



2. Licen- 
tiousness. 



The pre- 
vailing 
vices. 



Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the 

1 4 stature of the Christ's ' fulness,' x that we may be no longer 
babes, wave-tossed mariners, carried hither and thither 
by every wind of the discipline 2 which originates in men's 
sleight of hand, in trickery for the furtherance of error's 

15 wiles ; but, holding the truth in love, may in every respect 

16 grow into Him who is the Head, even Christ. From Him 
all the Body, linked and welded together by every joint 
supplying vital energy as each single part requires, derives 
its growth for its own upbuilding in love. 

Dissension, however, was by no means the worst scandal. 
The heresy relegated the sins of the flesh to the category of 
' things indifferent ' ; and the gross licence which had 
disgraced the Corinthian Church was rampant in the 
Churches of Asia. Christian and heathen morals were 
indistinguishable. 

17 This, then, I say and testify in the Lord, that you no 
longer comport yourselves as the Gentiles do, in the 

18 futility of their mind, being darkened in their thought, 
alienated from the life of God by reason of the wilful 
ignorance which is in them and the callousness of their 

19 heart. Sunk in insensibility, they have abandoned themr 
selves to wantonness to work all uncleanness greedily. 

to, si But it is not thus that you have learned the Christ, if indeed 
you have heard Him and been taught in Him — and this is 

22 the truth in Jesus — that you should lay off, as regards your 
former behaviour, your old self which is doomed to the 

23 corruption that the lusts of error ever bring, and be 

24 renovated by the spirit of your mind, and clothe you with 
the new self which was created after God's likeness in the 
righteousness and piety of the truth. 

The Apostle now proceeds to deal with this aspect of the 
situation ; and how appalling it was appears from his 

1 77X4*10, either 'stature' (cf. Lk. xix. 3) or 'age' (cf. Jo. ix. 21 j Heb. xi. 11). 
It was taken here in the latter sense by the Latin versions (cf. Vulg. : ' in 
mensuram setatis plenitudinis Christi ') ; and Augustine found in the passage an 
intimation of the condition of the redeemed in the hereafter (cf. De Civ. Dei, 
xxii. xv). They will 'attain to the measure of the age of His fulness'; and 
since He died and was raised and ascended at the age of thirty-three, in the very 
prime of manhood when He had passed the immaturity of youth and was still 
untouched by the decay of age, this will be the condition of all who are raised in 
Him and share His glory. They will ' flourish in immortal youth.' There will be 
neither immaturity nor infirmity in our glorified humanity. Cf. Thorn. Aquin. 
Summ. Theol, in, Q. xlvi, Art. ix. * Cf. p. 593. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 541 

catalogue of the prevailing iniquities — lying, quarrelsome- 
ness, dishonesty, uncleanness, and drunkenness. 

25 And therefore lay off falsehood and ' speak truth every Zech. vhi. 
one with his neighbour,' inasmuch as we are one another's l6 - 

26 members. ' Be angry and sin not ' Let not the sun set Ps. iv. 4. 

27 upon your angerment ; 1 and never give room to the Devil. 

28 Let the thief be a thief no longer, but rather let him toil 
with his own hands at honest work, that he may have 

29 something to share with one in need. Never let unwhole- 
some speech pass your lips, but only such as is good for 
improvement of the occasion, that it may give grace to the 

30 hearers. 2 And do not grieve God's Holy Spirit in whom 

31 you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all 
bitterness and passion and anger and clamour and reviling 
be banished from your midst, and withal every sort of 

32 malice. Treat one another kindly and tenderly, forgiving 
r. 1 each other just as God in Christ forgave you. Follow 

a God's example, then, as His beloved children, and comport 
yourselves lovingly, just as the Christ loved you and gave Ps. xi. 6. 
Himself up on your behalf, ' an offering and a sacrifice ' Ex - * xix « 
to God ' for an odour of a sweet fragrance/ xx.' 41* 

3 And as for fornication and every sort of uncleanness or 
greed, let them never be even named among you, as befits 

4 saints ; obscenity, too, and foolish talking or levity, 3 
which are all misbecoming. Your business is rather 

5 thanksgiving. For keep this fact in recognition — that 
every one addicted to fornication or uncleanness or greed 
— and greed is idolatry — has no inheritance in the Kingdom 
of the Christ and God. 

6 Let no one deceive you with empty words. These are 
the things which bring down the anger of God upon the 

7 sons of disobedience. Take, then, no part with them. 

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the 

1 The Pythagorean rule (Piut. De Frat. Am. 488 c). Cf. Jer. Taylor, Great 
Exemplar, II. xii. 30. 

a Cf . Plut. Perid. viii. 4 : ' He was so scrupulous in regard to his speech that 
always, when he was going to the platform, he would pray to the gods that not a 
word might fall from him unwittingly unfitted to the occasion in question 
{vpbs T7]v irpoKeifxivTjy x/ 36 "**' dvapfiaarov)^ 

8 cvrpaireXla, 'versatility.' In a good sense in classics. Cf. Arist. Rhet. II. 
xii. 16 : 7; yh.p evrponreXLci TreiraiSev/xtvr) tifipis 1<ttIv. Plato {Rep. VIII. 563 a) 
couples tvTpaireKia and x a P LevTL(T l x ^i 'pleasantry.' The evrpaTreXo? was dis- 
tinguished, on the one hand, from the ye\wT07roi6?, 'buffoon,' and, on the other, 
from the VKXypos, 'churl.' The word, however, degenerated, and Suidas defines 
it as p-vpoXoyia, Kov<pbTi)s, airaidevala. The Antiochenes termed their boasted 
scurrility (cf . p. 67) evrpaireXia (Julian, Misop. 344 b). Cf . Trench, N. T. Syn. j 
Jer. Taylor, Serm. XXlli, 'The Good and Evil Tongue.' 



542 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

9 Lord. As children of light comport yourselves — for the 

fruit of light grows in the soil of every sort of goodness 

io and righteousness and truth, — always proving what is 

ii well-pleasing to the Lord ; and have no dealings with 

the unfruitful works of the darkness; rather expose them, 

ia, 1 3 For it is disgraceful even to speak of their secret doings. But 

being exposed, they all are manifested by the light ; for 

14 all that is manifested is light. And therefore it is said : * 

' Awake, O sleeper, 
And arise from the dead, 

And the Christ will give thee light.' 

15 Take careful heed, then, how you comport yourselves. 

1 6 Let it not be as unwise men but as wise, buying up the 

17 opportunity, because these are evil days. Therefore do 
not lose your moral sense, but understand what is the will 
of the Lord. 

18 And never get drunk with wine — thai way lies profligacy 
19 — but be filled with the Spirit. Talk to each other in 

psalms and hymns and spiritual songs ; sing and make 

20 music in your heart to the Lord. Give thanks always 
for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to the 

21 God and Father. Be subject to one another in Christ's 
fear. 

Social Here is the sovereign antidote to the moral plague — the 

ships.° n " grace of the Holy Spirit. It satisfies the soul ; it quenches 
unholy desires ; it makes the heart grateful and glad and 
gentle ; it banishes selfishness and establishes the law of 
love. Every domain of society had been infected with the 
foul contagion, and the Apostle proceeds to commend the 
blessed remedy to every class — husbands and wives, parents 
and children, masters and slaves. 

22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the 
Cf. i Cor. 23 Lord, because a husband is his wife's head as the Christ 
X1 * 3, also is the Church's Head, Himself His Body's Saviour. 

24 But, as the Church is subject to the Christ, so let the wives 
be to the husbands in everything. 

25 Husbands, love your wives just as the Christ also loved 

26 the Church and gave Himself up for her, that He might 
make her holy, after cleansing her with the laver of water, 

27 by the Word, 2 that He might present the Church to Himself 

* A verse of a Christian hymn. 

? 4v p^fiart belongs to ay ia<ry. The Word of God (cf. vi. 17), His truth, is the 
means of sanctification (cf. Jo. xvii. 17). Chrys., construing 4m p^fian with 
KaOaplaas ry \ovrp$ tov i! Soros, understands by ' the word ' the baptismal formula 
'in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.' 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 543 

all-glorious with never a spot or a wrinkle or aught of the 

28 sort, but that she might be holy and blameless. Thus 
also ought husbands to love their own wives — just as they 
love their own bodies. One who loves his wife loves him- 

29 self. For no one ever hated his own flesh ; no, he nurtures 

30 and cherishes it just as the Christ does the Church, because 

31 we are members of His Body. ' For this reason shall a 

man forsake his father and mother, and shall be joined to Gen. ii. 24 

32 his wife; and the two shall become one flesh.' This 

mystery is great : my reference is to Christ and to the 

33 Church. However, as regards you individually, let each 

love his own wife just as he loves himself ; and as for the 

wife, let her see to it that she fear her husband. 1 

vi. 1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord ; for this is a 

2 duty. 'Honour thy father and mother' — this is the Ex. xx. 12; 

3 first commandment with a promise attached to it — ' that Dt * v * l6, 
it may prove well with thee, and thy days be long upon the 
earth.' 

4 And, fathers, never anger your children, but v nurture 
them in the Lord's instruction and admonition. 2 

5 Slaves, obey your human lords with fear and trembling 
in the simplicity of your heart as you obey the Christ, 

6 not in the way of eye-service as though you had only men 
to please, but as Christ's slaves, doing God's will with the 

7 soul's devotion. Serve with good-will as the Lord's slaves 

8 and not men's, knowing that whatever good each does, he 
will get it back from the Lord, whether he be a slave or a 
free man. 

9 And, lords, act on the same principles toward them. For- 
bear your threating, knowing that both theirs and yours 
is the Lord in Heaven, and there is no respect of persons 
with Him. 

Human effort is impotent without heavenly reinforcement. The 
It was a hard warfare that his readers must wage — a warfare of Godf 
against strong and subtle spiritual forces ; and the Apostle 
not only summons them to the conflict but shows them 
' the panoply of God.' Already in writing to the Thessa- cf. iTh. 
lonians and the Corinthians he had employed the metaphor £ r. : x 2 4 
of the soldier and his armour ; but now he elaborates it 
and portrays in minute detail a mail-clad warrior. Here is 
another evidence of his Roman environment ; and it was 
doubtless the praetorian guardsmen who took their turns in 

1 As the Christian fears Christ (cf. ver. 21). 
8 Cf. p. 61. 



544 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the wardenship of the prisoner, that furnished him with the 
material of the picture. His nimble imagination caught the 
spiritual analogy, and he turned it into an effective parable. 

io Henceforth find your power in the Lord and in the might of 
ii His strength. Clothe yourselves with the panoply of God, 
that you may have power to stand against the stratagems of the 
12 Devil. For it is not with flesh and blood that we have to 
wrestle, but with ' the principalities,' with ' the authorities,' 
with ' the rulers of this dark world,' with ' the spiritual hosts 
13 of evil' 1 in 'the heavenly regions.' Therefore take up the 
panoply of God, that you may have power to stand your ground 
in the evil day, and after every achievement still stand firm. 
is. xi. 5 ; 14 Stand, then, with ' the girdle of truth about your waist ' and 
lix. 7; Hi. I5 « the cu i r ass of righteousness on your breast ' and the equip- 
i6ment of 'the Gospel of peace on your feet.' In every en- 
counter take up the shield of faith, on which you will have 
17 power to quench the flaming missiles 2 of the Evil One. And 
is. Hx. 17 ; receive ' the helmet of salvation ' and ' the sword of the Spirit,' 
xiix^2, xi. l8 th a t j Sj ' the Word of God.' With all prayer and supplication 
ii 5 , ° pray at all seasons in the Spirit, and for that be vigilant in all 

19 perseverance and supplication for all the saints, and on my 
behalf that speech may be given me, whenever I open my 

20 mouth, to publish boldly the mystery of the Gospel on behalf 
cf. 2 Cor. of which I am an ambassador — in a chain ! 3 — that in telling it 

I may speak as boldly as I ought to do. 



7 



v. 20. 



sion. 



conciu- An encyclical, being intended for various communities, 
was necessarily couched in general terms and lacked the 
greetings wherewith the Apostle was wont to conclude his 
letters. When he despatched his great encyclical on 
Justification by Faith he annexed a personal message to each 
copy, and he would probably have done the like in this 
instance had there been no better way. But Tychicus had 
undertaken the toilsome office of conveying the letter to 

1 Both ol Kocrp-OKparopes and to. Trvevjj,aTiKa rrjs Tropyjplat are Gnostic phrases. 
Cf. Iren. I. i. 10. The term 6 KoafioKpaTwp was derived originally from the 
Talmud, where it denotes the Angel of Death. Cf. Vayik. Kab. 18: 'At that 
time the Lord called the Angel of Death and said to him: "Although I have 
made thee Kosmocrator ("V)D*1p1Dnp) over the creatures, yet hast thou no power 
over this nation, because they are My sons. " ' 

* The falarica or malleoli, fitted with pitch and tow and launched ablaze to fire 
houses and other buildings. 

* 'Paradoxon,' says Bengel. ' Mundus habet legatos splendidos.' An 
ambassador's person was sacrosanct, 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 545 

Asia and delivering it to the various churches, and he would, 
more effectively than any written message, express to each 
all that was in the Apostle's heart. 

21 That you also may know my situation and my employment, 
Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, 

22 will acquaint you with everything. I am sending him to you 
for this very purpose, that you may be acquainted with our 
concerns, and that he may encourage your hearts. 

23 Peace to the brothers and love and faith withal from God 
the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

24 Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in 
' incorruption.' 1 

It was not without occasion that the Apostle introduced Conversion 
in his practical exhortation a counsel to slaves and masters. SvesSve. 
An addition had been made to his little company in the 
person of Onesimus, a fugitive slave. His master was 
Philemon, a prominent member of the Christian community 
at Colossae and one of Paul's Asian converts. Though he cf. Phm. 
belonged to a Christian master, Onesimus was not himself a I9 ' 
Christian. He was a slave of the lowest order — a Phrygian 
slave, and a Phrygian slave was a byword for rascality. 
It was a common proverb that ' a Phrygian was the better 
of a flogging ' ; 2 and Onesimus had acted up to the reputation 
of his class. He had stolen from his master and decamped. Cf. Phm. 
And he had naturally betaken himself to Rome. The vast x ' 
metropolis was, in the phrase of a Latin historian, 3 ' the 
cesspool into which the refuse of the world streamed ' ; and 
nowhere could the fugitive find a safer refuge than in its 

1 A<p$apffia, one of the heretical terms. Cf. fragment of Gnostic Gospel 
{Oxyrh. Pap. 1081, IO-19) : &ir* v ' wet? rb yeiub/uevov dirb rijs <p6opas diroyelverai 
ihi dirb <pdopas yeyovbs, rb 5k yeivbfitvov dirb d<p6apcias ovk diroyeiverai d\\a ixivei 
&<p&apTov ws airb &<pdap<rias ycyoubs, * He said : Everything that is born of 
corruption perishes as having been born of corruption ; and what is born of 
incorruption does not perish but remains incorrupt as having been born of in- 
corruption' (cf. Jo. iii. 6). One of the Gnostic 'syzygies' was ' ' kfydapaia koX 
Xpcarbs (cf. Iren. I. xxvii. 1). Paul here (1) affirms the reality of the Incarnation, 
the oneness of the Divine Christ and the human Jesus {rbv Ki'> piov t]/xQv 'Itjcovv 
Xpiarbv), and (2) places 'incorruption' in loving Him — not in the negation but in 
the consecration of matter. 

* Cf. Suid. : $pi>$- dvTjp irXrjyels d/ielvuv ical SiaKovtffrepos. Cic. Pro Place. 27 : 
1 Utrum igitur nostrum est an vestrum hoc proverbium Phrygem plagis fieri so/ere 
nidi or em ? ' 

* Sallust, Catil. xxxvii ; cf. Tac. Ann. XV. 44. 

2 M 



546 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

teeming purlieus. He was soon in distress and needed a 
friend. Paul, confined to his lodgings, would never have 
encountered him ; but his comrades were free, and they did 
the work of evangelists in the city ; and it is an indication of 
the nature of their ministry that in the course of it one of 
them came across the wretched fugitive. Perhaps it was 
Tychicus. Since he was an Asian, he may have visited 
Colossae and stayed at the house of Philemon ; and he 
would recognise Onesimus. He brought the forlorn creature 
home, and the gracious Apostle won his poor soul for Christ. 
Kindness begat kindness, and Onesimus was like a son to 
his benefactor, tending him with affectionate devotion. 

Advent of By a curious coincidence hardly had Paul finished his 

ofCoiossL encyclical to the Churches of Asia when another Colossian 
presented himself. This was Epaphras, and not only was he 

cf. Coi. i. a native of Colossae but it was he who had introduced 
,7, iv. 12. Christianity into the city. He was one of the numerous 
provincials who had visited Ephesus during the Apostle's 
ministry there and been won to the Faith ; and he had 
carried home the glad tidings and had ever since been the 
leader of the Church. Colossae had not escaped the poison 
which had infected the Province, and Epaphras had come to 
acquaint the Apostle with the situation and obtain his 
counsel. 

The cities He must of course have been aware of the appeal which 

on the 

Lycus: the Churches of Asia had addressed to the Apostle, and it 
might be supposed that this should have sufficed him. But 
it appears that he was confronted by a peculiar difficulty and 

colossae. had need of special counsel. Colossae, once a great city, 1 
had in those days sunk into comparative insignificance. 2 
It had been eclipsed by the rise of two prosperous neighbours. 

Laodiceia. Qne was Laodiceia, which competed with Apamea Kibotos 
for the position of chief city in Phrygia. It lay on the left 
bank of the Lycus, fully five miles to the west of Colossae, 
backed to the south by the snow-capped range of the Cadmus; 
and it had risen to importance under the imperial rule. 3 

1 Cf. Herod. VII. 30 ; Xen. Anab. 1. ii. 6. 
1 Cf. Strabo, 576, 578. 

* Strabo : ij 5£ Aaodliceia fwipa vpbrtpov ot><r* ati%ri<nv IXajSei* if 1 fyxwv kmI tup 
ij/xer^piov iraripuy. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 547 

Its situation favoured its advancement, since it was not only 
a station on the great trade route between Ephesus and the 
East but the junction of three busy highways — from Sardes 
in the north-west, from Dorylaeum in the north, and from 
the southern port of Attaleia. The Province of Asia, under 
Roman administration, was divided into * jurisdictions/ 
and the most important of these was the jurisdictio Ciby- 
ratica ; and Laodiceia was its capital, where the taxes of the 
twenty-five subordinate towns were collected and the pro- 
consular courts held their sessions. 1 It was a financial centre, 
and Cicero resorted thither during his Cilician proconsulship 
to cash his treasury bills. 2 Nor was its prosperity due merely 
to political circumstances. It derived a splendid revenue 3 
from a breed of sheep peculiar to the neighbourhood with 
fleeces of raven gloss and fine texture ; it excelled also in 
sandal-making ; 4 and its fame and wealth were further 
augmented by the manufacture of a reputed eye-salve, the 
' Phrygian powder/ 5 employed in a celebrated school of 
medicine between Laodiceia and Carura. 6 Laodiceia was thus 
a prosperous city, and it is a striking evidence not only of her 
wealth but of the spirit which animated her, that when, 
some three years later, she and the neighbouring cities of 
Hierapolis and Colossae were laid in ruins by one of the earth- 
quakes so frequent in that volcanic district, she repaired the 
destruction by her own resources without the usual subsidy 
from the imperial exchequer. 7 This magnanimous spirit 
had its perils, and it is no surprise that in the pride of their 
achievement the Laodiceans should have boasted of their 
material riches, oblivious of their spiritual destitution, and 
needed the apocalyptic counsel to purchase ' gold tried with Rev. iii. 17. 
fire ' and the ' white raiment ' which was better than their 1 ' 

1 Plin. Nat. Hist. V. 29. 

* Cf. ad Fam. in. 5; ad Attic. V. 15. 

* Strabo : irpoco^eiovrai Xa/jurptis &w y airup, 
4 Cf. Schtirer, Jewish People, 11. i. p. 44. 

* Cf. Ramsay, Cit. and Bis A. of Phryg., 1. p. 52. 
8 Strabo, 580. 

7 Tac. Ann. xv. 27. Tacitus assigns the earthquake to the year 60 ; and it 
would then be strange that the Apostle in writing to Colossae early in 61 should 
have made no reference to the recent disaster. But Eusebius {Chron. 01. 210), 
who has here a better title to credence (cf. Lightfoot, Col., pp. 38 ff.), puts it 
after the burning of Rome in 64. 



548 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

fine stuff of raven black, and anoint their blind eyes with a 
salve more efficacious than their ' Phrygian powder/ 
Hiera- Across the Lycus, some four miles distant from Laodiceia, 

stood the city of Hierapolis, backed by the Mesogis range. 1 
Its enduring fame is that there, about the year a.d. 50, was 
born that noblest of the Stoic teachers, Epictetus, * a slave, 
and maimed in body, and a beggar for poverty, and dear to 
the immortals.' Its chief industry was the dyeing of 
woollen fabrics in scarlet and purple, but this was not the 
main source of its abundant prosperity. The physical 
peculiarities which distinguish the valley of the Lycus 
attain at Hierapolis their highest development. The neigh- 
bourhood teems with hot springs ; and so strongly are these 
impregnated with calcareous deposit that the courses of the 
cascades which leap down the mountain-side are marked by 
a snow-white incrustation, and it is told how the husband- 
men used to embank trenches round their gardens and 
vineyards and flood these from the streams, and in a year's 
time the channels had hardened into fences of solid stone. 2 
Some of the springs were poisonous, 3 especially one deep well 
known as the Plutonium which, like the Grotta del Cane 
near Naples, exhaled mephitic vapour fatal to any living 
creature that breathed it except, according to local fable, 
the priests of Cybele. Most of them, however, were merely 
medicinal ; and thus the city acquired fame as a health 
resort, and the numerous baths which still survive among 
its extensive ruins, show how largely it was frequented. 
Jewish There was naturally an intimate fellowship between the 

tion. Christian Churches in those adjacent cities. Probably all 

cf. coi. iv. three had been founded by Epaphras, and he maintained a 
constant and solicitous surveillance over them. The imme- 
diately significant fact, however, is that there was in that 



1 Cf. Strabo, 629 f. It is an evidence of the connection between the Asian 
heresy in the Apostle's day and the later Gnosticism that Hierapolis was subsequently 
designated Ophioryme, ' the Serpent's stronghold ' (cf . Acta Philippic 107), as the 
home of the Jewish-Gnostic sect of the Ophites or Naasenes, so named because 
the serpent (o<£i?, t^n;j) was the symbol of their worship (cf. Hippol. Refut. v. 4). 

T T 

* Strabo : rb /xev yap VSwp els irCopov ovtco padlus /teTO/SdXXet trrjTTSfievov Sxrr* 
6x£ T °vs itrdyovres <ppay/xoi>s direpyd^ovrai fiovoXldovs. Cf. Vitruv. VIII. 3. 

8 Hence the epigram {AnthoL I. 65) : et rts air&yl-affOai pkv tovti $avdrov V 
iTtdvfxei, J i£ 'lepas II6Aew? xf/vxpbp V8wp ttUtv. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 549 

locality a large and influential Jewish colony. It originated 
in the reign of Antiochus the Great (223-187 B.C.) who, in 
view of civil commotion in Lydia and Phrygia, deported 
thither from Mesopotamia two thousand Jewish households, 
that their proved loyalty might leaven the prevailing dis- 
affection. 1 Some of these would certainly be settled in the 
valley of the Lycus, and they would share in the increasing 
prosperity of its cities and be continually reinforced by 
fresh accessions of their enterprising race. How numerous 
and important the Jewish population became is evinced by 
the circumstance that their annual tribute of a half-shekel 
apiece to the Temple at Jerusalem amounted to so large a 
sum that in 62 B.C. Flaccus, the Propraetor of the Province 
of Asia, took alarm. He prohibited the exportation of so 
much treasure and arrested in Laodiceia no less than twenty 
pounds weight ; 2 representing, it has been calculated, over 
eleven thousand male adults irrespective of women, children, 
and slaves. 

The Jewish population in the valley of the Lycus was thus a Jewish 
very large ; and, though the Churches were predominantly §5^-^ 
Gentile, they would include a proportion of Jewish converts. 3 heresy. 
These may have been few, but they were influential, and they 2 ij 27;'«. 
had succeeded in turning the heresy into a Jewish channel II " 13, 
and casting it in a Jewish mould. Intellectual movements 
are commonly epidemic. They are inspired by the spirit 
of the age, and their influence is all-pervasive. Thus, 
those Gnostic tendencies which in Gentile communities 
expressed themselves in terms of Greek philosophy, especially 
Neopythagoreanism, found a home also in Judaism. 

That home was Essenism, 4 and its affinity with the incipient Essene 
Gnosticism which had invaded the Churches of Asia is P nnc] P Ies: 
distinctly apparent. Its fundamental principle was the (?) Essen- 
essential evil of matter. The body was corruptible and matter, 
evanescent. It was the prison-house of the immortal soul, 
and only on its severance from the body would the soul be 

1 Jos. Ant. xii. iii. 4. 

* Cic. Pro Flacc. xxviii. 

8 It is not without significance in this connection that there were Phrygian Jew* 
in the multitude of converts on the great Day of Pentecost (cf. Ac. ii. lo). 

♦ Cf. p. 447- 



550 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

released from its bondage and joyfully soar on high. 1 It 
does not appear, nor indeed is it likely, that the Essenes 
engaged in characteristically Greek speculation regarding the 
mode of creation, yet they had metaphysical theories of their 
own. No one was admitted to the order until he had served 
faithfully a noviciate of three years ; and then he must 
pledge himself by* awful oaths/ chiefly ' that he would neither 
hide anything from the members of the sect nor disclose 
anything regarding them to others, no, not under violence 
even unto death ; that he should communicate none of their 
ordinances to any one otherwise than he had himself received 
them ; but that he would refrain from robbery, and likewise 
closely guard the books of their sect and the names of the 
Cf. Coi. ii. angels.' 2 Hence it appears that the Essenes had a hidden 
3 * lore, enshrined in ' sacred books,' 3 and a doctrine of angels. 

(2) Angelic The latter is especially significant. It is essentially Jewish, 
mediaries. an d it i s illustrated by two specific ideas. One is the 
Rabbinical notion that the Law had been delivered to Moses 
by angelic mediators ; 4 and the other the Philonic doctrine 
i. 26, 27. of the creation of man. It is written in the Book of Genesis, 
first, that God said, ' Let us make man in our image,' and, 
then, that ' God created man ' ; and Philo explains this as 
meaning that in the creation of man God co-operated with 
the angels. ' All else was made by God, but man alone 
was fashioned with the aid of other fellow-workers. The 
Father of the Universe converses with His own powers, to 
which He gave the fashioning of the mortal part of our soul, 
in imitation of His own art when He formed the rational 
in us ; deeming it right that what rules in the soul should 
be wrought by the Ruler and what is subordinate by sub- 
ordinates.' 5 Thus the Jewish doctrine conceived the 
angels as bearing a part in revelation and creation ; and the 
Essenes elaborated it, especially by assigning names to the 
angels and denning their functions after the manner of the 
Book of Enoch. 6 Hence it appears that their doctrine 
exhibits a close analogy to the Gnostic theory of a hierarchy 

1 Cf. Jos. De Bell.Jud. II. viii. II. 

I Ibid. 7. • Ibid. 12. 

* Cf. n. on Gal. iii. 20, p. 206. 

* Phil. De Proftig. 556 (Mangey). • Enoch, xx, xL 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 551 

of angelic intermediaries between God and the world ; and 
furthermore its elevation of the angels to the rank of God's cf. Coi. it 
fellow- workers issued in angel- worship. 1 l8. 

Moreover, the Essenes were visionaries. They pored over (3) Asceti- 
the prophetic Scriptures and undertook to foretell the future. 2 clsm ' 
Indeed, according to one widely approved though doubtful 
etymology, their name signified ' the Seers.' 3 Josephus 
affirms that their predictions rarely missed the mark, and 
he has furnished several striking instances. 4 Visionaries 
are commonly ascetics, ' lean-look'd prophets whispering 
fearful change ' ; and here is a clue to the Apostle's reference 
when he describes the ascetic teacher who was unsettling 
the Churches by the Lycus, as ' poring over his visions, coi. a. 18. 
idly puffed up by his carnal mind.' For the Essenes were 
ascetics. Indeed this was their primary and fundamental 
characteristic ; and if Philo's explanation of their name as 
signifying ' the Holy Ones ' be etymologically untenable, 
it is at all events historically accurate. They shared with 

1 Preaching of Peter, quoted in Clem. Alex. Strom. VI. v. 41 : ^??5£ /card 
'lovdalovs <rij3ea9e, ical yap ixetvoL fidvoi oldfxevoi rbv Qebv yivdxrKew ovk iirlaravTai, 
Xarpevovres dyy^Xois /ecu dpxayy^Xois, p,r\vl nai aeXrjurj. Orig. Contra Cels. V. 6 : 
irpwrov odv tCov 'lovdalow dav/xafeiv &}-iov, el rhv [xkv ovpavbv ical roiis ev ry5e 
dyyeXovs <ri(3ov(ri' to, <re/iv6Tara S£ clvtov ical dwaTibrara. Cf. the apocalyptic 
protest against the angelolatry which had invaded the Churches of Asia (Rev. 
xix. 10 ; xxii. 9). Theodrt. (on Col. ii. 18) says that angelolatry continued long 
in Phrygia and Pisidia, and even in his own time (5 tb c.) was still uneradicated. 

* Cf. Jos. De Bell. Jud. 11. viii. 12. 

* 'Eo-crcuot from ntn ' see,' a derivation which seems to be countenanced by 

T T> 

Suidas : ot iTrifieKovvr ai rrjs "fidiKiji \^£ews detopia 5e~ rd iroWa irapa^ivovaiv. ivdev 
Kai 'Etrtrcucn KaXovvrat, tovto 5rj\ovvTOS rod dvdfiaros, Toxniari, OeuprjTiKol. The 
origin of the name is uncertain. Besides the above many explanations have been 
suggested (cf. Lightfoot, Col., pp. 347 ff.), and of those three maybe adduced. 
(1) 'The Holy Ones,' from 3<rio$. This Philo's derivation. Cf. Quod Omnis 
Probus Liber, 457 (Mangey) : diaX^Krov 'EXXtjvlktis Trapdovvfioi ocrtor^ros. Hence 
probably the form 'Oaaaloi. (2) ' The Healers' or ! Physicians,' from Aram. KDtf 

T -J* 

'heal.' Cf. the kindred Egyptian sect of the Qepairevral, 'Healers.' This is 
countenanced by the statement of Josephus {De Bell. Jud. 11. viii. 6) that the 
Essenes ' with a view to the healing of ailments sought out remedial roots and 
the properties of stones.' (3) 'The Silent Ones,' from n^'n 'keep silence,' in 

T T ' 

reference to their secrecy regarding their hidden lore. Josephus {ibid. 5) says 
that 'to those without the silence of those within appeared as some awful 
mystery.' 

4 Cf. the predictions of Judas {Ant. xill. xi. 2 ; De Bell. Jud. 1. iii. 5), 
Menahem {Ant. xv. x. 5), and Simon {De Bell. Jud. II. vii. 3). 



552 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the Greek philosophers the initial postulate of the inherent 
and necessary evil of matter ; but there the agreement 
ended. The common principle yielded two diametrically 
opposite inferences. It was argued, on the one hand, that 
material things are, for the spiritual man, ' indifferent ' ; 
and, on the other, that the flesh must be mortified that the 
spirit may be unfettered. 1 Thus the principle issued now 
in libertinism and now in asceticism, and it is remarkable 
that the Gnostic schools of the second century were divided 
between these two attitudes. The Gentile schools, like the 
Carpocratians, were libertine, while the Judaistic Encratites 
were ascetic. And already in the Apostle's day the dis- 
tinction had asserted itself in the Province of Asia. The 
general attitude, denned in his encyclical, was libertine, but 
the attitude in the Churches by the Lycus was ascetic. And 
the reason is that in the latter the heresy was cast in the 
Essene mould, and the Essenes were ascetics. 
Excessive They shared the Pharisaic reverence for the Mosaic Law, 
of'the* 1 ' but they carried it beyond the utmost reach of Pharisaic 
Mosaic scrupulosity. ' The chief object of veneration among 
them next to God was the name of the Lawgiver ; and if any 
one blasphemed against him, he was punished with death.' 
They observed the Sabbath with extreme rigour. ' They not 
only prepared their food the day before, that they might not 
so much as kindle a fire on that day, but they durst not so 
much as remove a vessel nor do their natural office.' 2 
Their ablutions were frequent. They bathed in cold water 
before each meal and whenever they incurred defilement. 
In the sultry East the practice of anointing the body after 
bathing was almost a necessity, but they would have none 
of it, regarding oil as a pollution ; and they always wore 
white raiment. 3 
sun- So resolute were the Essenes in eschewing the contamina- 

,ors ip ' tion of impure matter, and thus far they remained true to the 
spirit of Jewish ceremonialism. But their ascetic solicitude 
carried them further and betrayed them into a usage which 

1 Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. III. v. 40 : <f>£pe 8$ els 3i5o die\6vTes irpayixara avians 
ras alptcreis atroKpiv&neda atiroTt. f) yap rot &St.a<p6pm ^tjv SlS&itkovgiv, 1j rb 
iytrtprovov ayovaai ZyKpareiav 5ta 8v<r<r€^€las Kal (pCKatrexdrnKxrCvris KarayytWovcn. 

* Jos. De Bell. Jud. 11. viii. 9. • Ibid. 3, 5, 9. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 553 

approached perilously near idolatry and suggests Zoroastrian 
influence. Light is purity, and they worshipped the sun, cf. Dt. iv. 
oblivious of the Scriptures' denunciations. 'Before the^d^. 1, 
appearance of the sun/ says Josephus, 1 ' they utter nothing ^ b 2 xxxil 
of profane matters but only certain ancestral prayers to him, Jer. xiiV. 
as though supplicating hirn to rise.' The Jewish Law had vm. ie. 
ordained that ordure should be buried in the earth, and the Cf.pt. 
Essenes observed this precept ; only, their anxiety was not x 
lest the unclean thing should offend the eyes of the Lord but 
' lest it should outrage the beams of the god ' ; and ' the 
god ' is here the Sun. It is such idolatry that the Apostle 
has in view when he warns the Christians in the valley of the 
Lycus against the empty deception of the heretical teacher col. ii. 8, 
who was making them his booty ' according to the world's 2a 
dim lights/ and reminds them that ' when they died with 
Christ, they left the world's dim lights/ 

The Gnostic ideas were en lair in those days, and they Essenism 
expressed themselves everywhere in terms of the prevailing oHhe° Uld 
thought. Tust as in the Greek world their vehicle was the Coiossian 

heresy. 

Neopythagorean philosophy, So in the Jewish world it was 
Essenism. It may indeed seem incredible that the doctrine 
of an isolated sect of anchorites in the Wilderness of Engedi 
should have been diffused abroad and travelled as far as the 
Province of Asia ; but the truth is that the Essenes were not 
all recluses. Many of them remained in the world. There 
was a Gate of the Essenes in Jerusalem ; 2 and Josephus 
says that ' they were numerous in every city.' 3 Thus their 
opinions and practices were notorious, and they would in- 
fluence many who did not profess themselves Essenes. 
Indeed their principal use was that they served as a congenial 
nidus for the larger ideas which were everywhere stirring 
in the minds of men and which but for them would hardly 
have found a lodgment in Judaism. 

The Churches in the valley of the Lycus, being predomi- An in- 
uantly Gentile, would naturally have fallen into line with teacher. 
their neighbours throughout the Province, but it appears Cf< Col . ;i 
that a persuasive teacher had arisen in their midst. He was 8 - 
a Jewish Christian ; and while he taught the common heresy, cf. i. 16. 

1 Jos. De Bell./ud. II. viii. 5. * Ibid. V. iv. 2. * Ibid. ir. vm. 4* 



554 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Cf.Eph.iv. he gave it the distinctive Essene cast. The distinction was 
Couple- mainly ethical : elsewhere in the Province the heresy was 
2 3- libertine ; in the valley of the Lycus it was ascetic. 

Letter Such was the situation which had confronted Epaphras 

churches an d which he reported to the Apostle ; and the latter pro- 
by the ceeded to deal with it in a letter addressed to the Church at 

Lycus. 

Colossae. To a large extent it traversed the same ground as 
his encyclical, since the intellectual problem was identical : 
the Gnostic ideas which had invaded the other churches 
of the Province prevailed also in those by the Lycus. Hence 
he thus far simply reiterates his argument and reproduces 
much of his phraseology. This was inevitable in writing 
immediately on the same theme. 1 Had the intellectual 
problem been all, the encyclical would have sufficed ; but 
there was also the ethical question. He had dealt elaborately 
in the encyclical with the prevailing libertinism ; but his 
argument there was irrelevant to the situation in the valley 
of the Lycus, and therefore he omits it and substitutes a 
disquisition on asceticism. Nevertheless there was much in 
the encyclical which was profitable for the Colossians and 
their neighbours, especially its full discussion of the Gnostic 
tendencies ; and he would have them read and ponder it also. 
Cf. Coi. iv. So he adheres to the original plan. Tychicus would convey 
both letters. He would make his tour of the Province and 
deliver the enc^/clical to each of the churches by the way. 
Colossas was his ultimate destination ; and on reaching it he 
w r ould deliver to the Christians there both their own letter 
and the encyclical which he had brought from Laodiceia, his 
previous station. And since their letter was designed for 
their neighbours as well, it must be transmitted first to 
Laodiceia and thence to Hierapolis. 

1 George Eliot's correspondence furnishes an apposite parallel. Writing to 
Madame Bodichon on 4th Dec. 1863 she says: 'You perceive that instead of 
being miserable, I am rather following a wicked example, and saying to my soul, 
"Soul, take thine ease.'" Then on 28th Dec. she writes to Mrs. Peter Taylor : 
* I am wonderfully well in body, but rather in a self-indulgent state mentally, saying, 
" Soul, take thine ease," after a dangerous example.' Cf. Sir Walter Scott's 
letter to Rev. Mr. Gordon, 12th Apr. 1825 (Lockhart's Life of Scott, chap, lxxv), 
repeating phrases which occur in his portraiture of Rev. Josiah Cargill in 
St. Ronarfs Well, chap, xvi (published Dec. 1823) — 'diminished the respectability,' 
* concio ad clemm^ ' walk through the parts.' 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 555 



LETTER TO COLOSSI 

After the customary salutation and address the Apostle Address 
expresses his appreciation of the past record of the Colossians. ^"ndation 
He had never indeed visited them, but he had heard of their cf. ii. 1. 
faith and love, and what Epaphras had told him had con- 
firmed those pleasing reports — a needful assurance lest they 
should suspect their ' faithful minister ' of an ungracious 
representation. 

i. 1 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, 

2 and Timothy the brother, to the saints and faithful brothers 
in Christ at Colossse. Grace to you and peace from God our 
Father. 

3 We thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, always 

4 for you in our prayers, since we have heard of your faith in 

5 Christ Jesus and the love which you bear to all the saints in 
view of the hope laid up for you in the heavens, which you 
heard of long ago in the word of the truth of the Gospel. 

6 That Gospel has come to you in the f ruitf ulness and growth 
which it displays throughout the world ; and these it has 
displayed among you also, ever since the day when you heard 

7 and gained full knowledge of the grace of God in truth, as you 
learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-slave, who is a 

8 faithful minister of the Christ on your behalf, 1 and who has 
informed me of your love in the Spirit. 

And lest they should fancy that recent developments had Assur- 
alienated his own regard, he assures them also of his constant continued 
affection and his earnest solicitude for their spiritual regard. 
advancement. 

9 Therefore we also, ever since the day when we heard of it, 
have never ceased praying on your behalf and asking that you 
may be filled with the full ' knowledge ' of His will in all 

10 ' wisdom ' and ' spiritual ' understanding, so that you may 
comport yourselves worthily of the Lord and please Him in 
everything by bearing fruit and growing in every good work 

11 through the full ' knowledge ' of God, by enduement with every 
kind of power, according to the might of His glory, to be ever 

12 enduring and long-suffering, with joyous thankfulness to the 

1 The authorities are fairly divided between virkp v/j,Qv and V7rep ^uwv. The 
former ('on your behalf) reminds the Colossians of Epaphras' devotion to them. 
The latter ('on our behalf) would mean that he had preached to them as the 
Apostle's deputy ; but in this case it should rather have been vwtp fxov. 



556 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Father who has qualified you to share in the lot of the saints in 

13 light. He rescued us from ' the authority of the darkness ' and 
transported us into the Kingdom of the Son who is His love's 

14 embodiment, 1 in whom we have our redemption, the remission 
of our sins. 



1. The Theological Question (i. 15-ii. 6) 

The Here by interweaving several of its characteristic phrases 

supremacy — ' knowledge/ ' wisdom/ ' spiritual/ ' the authority of the 
of Christ, darkness '-—the Apostle has introduced the heresy ; and 
now he proceeds to its refutation. He affirms the pre- 
eminence of that ' Son who is the embodiment of the Father's 
love/ and defines His relation to God, to the Universe, and 
to the Church. He was no mere ceon, no mere angelic 
intermediary, but the Eternal Son of God incarnate, in the 
fine phrase of Hugo Grotius, Dei inaspecti aspectabilis 
imago, ' the Visible Image of the Invisible God/ That is 
His relation to God, and His relation to the Universe is its 
corollary. The Father's heart is wide, and He created the 
Universe and peopled it that He might lavish upon it His 
overflowing affection. His Eternal Son was not enough, 
Rom. viii. and He created a multitude of sons in His image ' that/ as the 
Apostle says elsewhere, ' He might be the first-born among 
many brothers.' But the Eternal Son, by right of primo- 
geniture, remains evermore the Lord of all creation, the 
Father's universal household. That is His relation to the 
Universe : it is * in Him ' and ' through Him ' and ' for Him/ 
But sin has destroyed the primal order and necessitated 
reconciliation ; and what Christ was to the former order, 
He is also to the latter. He is the Head of the Church. 
He was the beginning of the former creation, and He is the 
beginning of the latter ; as the First-born, the Eternal Son, 
He was Lord of the human family, and as the First-born from 
the dead He is Lord of the redeemed who share His Death 
and His Resurrection. 

1 rod Tlov tt)s ayd-rrrjs airoO. Cf. Aug. Dc Trin. XV. 37 : ' The love of the 
Father, which is in His ineffably simple nature, is nothing else than His very 
nature and substance, as often already we have said and dislike not often to 
repeat. And therefore " the Son of His love " is none else than One who has been 
begotten of His substance.' 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 557 

15 And He is the image of the invisible God, the First-born 

16 Lord of all creation, because in Him was created the universe of 
things in the heavens x and on the earth, the visible and the 
invisible, whether ' thrones ' or ' lordships ' or ' principalities ' 
or ' authorities ' : the universe has been created through Him 

17 and for Him ; and He is before all things, and in Him they are 

1 8 an ordered universe. And He is the Head of the Body, the 
Church. He is the Beginning, the First-born from the dead, 

19 that He may everywhere occupy the first place, because it was 
God's good pleasure that all ' the fulness ' should dwell in Him 

20 and that He should through Him reconcile the universe to 
Himself by making peace through the blood of His Cross — yes, 
reconcile all through Him whether on the earth or in the 
heavens. 

This was no mere theory for the Colossians ; they had incentives 
experienced it. Once alienated from God, they had been fastJSs. 
reconciled through Christ's infinite Sacrifice — His true 
Incarnation and His Death ' in the body of His flesh ' ; 
and nothing could prevent their attainment of the final 
glory of His redemption but their own unfaithfulness, their 
abandonment of the Gospel which had already done so much 
for them. That was the peril which threatened them, and 
the Apostle addresses to them a double appeal, a double 
argument for resisting the heretical allurement and standing 
true to the Gospel. First, it was ' the Gospel which had been 
preached in all the creation under heaven.' Its efficacy had 
been proved in every land, and should they forsake it for an 
evanescent speculation ? And, again, it was ' the Gospel of 
which he had been made a minister.' He was the Apostle 
of the Gentiles, and it was for the sake of the Colossians and 
their fellow-Gentiles that he had toiled and suffered and was 
at that hour in bonds. It was a delicate appeal to their 
chivalry, a suggestive challenge to their loyalty. He was 
their champion, and he was enduring the malice of that 
party which would have excluded them from the Church. 
There were, as he significantly observes later, only three cf. h. 10, 
Jewish Christians befriending him in his sore need. Would 

1 iv rots otipavoh in the Colossian letter corresponds to lv reus eirovpavLois in the 
encyclical (cf. Eph. i. 3, 20, ii. 6, iii. 10, vi. 12). The phrases are distinctive of 
the Jewish and Gentile phases of the heresy respectively. The ' heavens ' here 
are the Seven Heavens of Rabbinical Theology, and the conception was employed 
by the Judaist Gnostic Valentinus in the 2 nd c, (cf. Iren. 1. i. 9). 



11. 



558 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the Colossians forget this and espouse a Judaist propa- 
ganda ? 

Not that he grudged his sacrifices for their sake. It was 
in a glorious cause that he was suffering ; and its glory lay in 
this — that he was not merely suffering on their behalf ; 
he was sharing the Redeemer's vicarious Sacrifice. His 
Death on Calvary was not the whole of Christ's Passion. 
He is the Head of the Church, and He shares the anguish of 
His meanest member. His Sacrifice is an agelong Passion, 
and it is continued by every believer who, according to His 
word, ' takes up his cross and follows Him.' That was the 
Apostle's inspiration. His sufferings were a sacred privilege ; 
they were his fellowship with the Glorified Lord, his con- 
tribution to the achievement of God's ' mystery/ the eternal 
purpose of universal redemption. 

And that was the reason of his insistent solicitude. The 
heresy was, at the best, a message for the few, for the 
esoteric circle of ' the spiritual,' ' the perfect,' who were 
initiated into its ' secret wisdom.' But the Gospel was for 
' every man ' ; and therefore it was that he was so anxious 
for his friends in the valley of the Lycus who had never seen 
his face or heard the truth from his own lips, and strove so 
hard to confirm their faith and arm them against the plausible 
sophistries which were invading their minds. 

21 And you, alienated as you once were, and enemies in your 

22 thought amid your evil works, He has now reconciled in the 
body of His flesh through His Death, to present you holy and 

«3 blameless and unchargeable in His sight, if indeed you abide 
by the Faith, founded and steadfast and never moved away 
from the hope of the Gospel which you heard — that Gospel 
which has been preached in all the creation under heaven, and 
of which I Paul was made a minister. 

»4 I am now rejoicing in my sufferings on your behalf, and I 
am doing my part to complete in my person what is lacking 
in the Christ's distresses on behalf of His Body, that is, the 

35 Church, of which I was made a minister according to the 
stewardship which God gave me for you to fulfil the Word 

26 of God, the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and 
the generations. But now it has been manifested to His 

27 saints, to whom it was God's will to discover what is the 
Cf. Rom. riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which 
viii. io ; 2 2 8 is ' Christ in you, the hope of glory.' And Him we proclaim, 
Gal. ^"19. ' admonishing every man and teaching every man in every sort 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 559 

of ' wisdom/ that we may present every man ' perfect ' in 

39 Christ. And to this end I toil and contend with all the energy 

wherewith His power endues me. 

u. 1 For I wish you to know what a hard contest it is that I am 

waging on behalf of you and the people at Laodiceia and all 

2 who have never seen my face in bodily presence, that their 
hearts may be encouraged and that they may be welded 
together in love and gain all the riches of intelligent satisfac- 
tion, till they attain a full ' knowledge ' of the mystery of God, 

3 even Christ, in whom all 'the treasures of wisdom' and is. xiv.3; 
4 ' knowledge ' are ' hidden.' I say this that no one may befool Prov - "• 3> 
5 you with plausible sophistry. For, though I am far away in 

bodily presence, yet I am with you in spirit and rejoice to see 
your discipline and the solid front which your faith in Christ 
presents. 

2. The Ethical Question (ii. 6-iv. 6) 

And now the Apostle turns to the ethical aspect of the Christian 
question. It was indeed well that the Christians in the pu 
valley of the Lycus had recognised their moral obligation 
and repudiated the libertinism which disgraced the other 
Churches of the Province. So far they were truly Christian ; 
for Christ is His people's pattern, and they are His only as 
they are like Him. The Apostle has just spoken of the 
' discipline ' of the Colossians and ' the solid front which 
their faith in Christ presented ' ; and now he applies thi9 
military metaphor. A gallant leader is the inspiration of 
his troops. He is their exemplar, like Shakespeare's hero by 
whose light 

' Did all the chivalry of England move 
To do brave acts : he was indeed the glass 
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves : 
He had no legs that practised not his gait ; 

... so that in speech, in gait, 
In diet, in affections of delight, 
In military rules, humours of blood, 
He was the mark and glass, copy and book, 
That fashion'd others.' 

' As, then/ says the Apostle, ' you have received the Christ, 
Jesus the Lord, comport yourselves in Him.' 

They were indeed right in seeking purity, but they sought 
it bv a wrong method— not by glad fellowship with the Living 



5 6o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Lord but by the morose practice of Judaistic asceticism. 
Despite the Apostle's protest the error persisted and spread 
down the valley of the Mseander. Some fifty years later it 
prevailed in the Church at Magnesia, 1 and St. Ignatius laid 
his finger on the mischief when he exhorted the Magnesians 
to ' put away the evil leaven which had grown stale and 
sour, and betake themselves to the new leaven, which is 
Jesus Christ/ The stale leaven is the spirit of asceticism, 
and it embitters the soul. The new leaven is the love of 
Christ, and it floods the heart with health and gladness and 
makes it, in the Apostle's phrase, ' overflow in thanksgiving.' 

6 As, then, you have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, com- 
7 port yourselves in Him. Be rooted, be built up in Him ; be 

confirmed by the Faith as you were taught it ; and overflow in 

thanksgiving. 

Condemna* And so he warns the Colossians against the ' philosophy 
asceticism. an d empty deception ' of the ascetic heresy. It was an 
attempt to recall them from the free, glad life of the Gospel 
to the futile bondage of Judaistic ceremonialism. All that 
it offered, Christ had given them. They had in Him the 
true circumcision — the purity which the old rite merely 
symbolised. For what did their Baptism signify ? It 
signified their union with Christ. They had died with Him ; 
they had been buried with Him ; they had been raised with 
Him ; and now they shared His triumphant life. His 
victory over the powers of evil was their redemption. Here 
the Apostle flashes out a magnificent picture. The ceremonial 
Law had been the debtor's bond, and God had reckoned with 
it in Christ. He had met its claims, and He had nailed the 
cancelled bond to His Cross, advertising to the Universe 
that it was no longer valid. And in cancelling the bond He 
had disarmed the powers of evil. His Sacrifice was their 
defeat. The Cross was the Victor's chariot, and He had led 
the vanquished ' principalities and authorities ' in His 
triumphal train. 

8 See to it ! Perhaps there will be * some one who is making 
3 r ou his booty through his philosophy and empty deception, 
according to the tradition of men, according to the world's 

x Ignat. Ad Magn* viii-x. ' Cf. n. on Gal. >i. 2, p. 199. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 561 

9 dim lights, 1 and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells 

10 all ' the fulness of deity ' embodied ; and you are ' filled ' in 
Him. He is the Head of every ' principality ' and ' authority.' 

11 And in Him you were circumcised with a circumcision not 
made by hand when you put off the body of the flesh and 

12 received the circumcision of the Christ by your burial with 
Him in Baptism, in which you were also raised with Him 
through your faith in the operation of God who raised Him 

13 from the dead. And you, when you were dead by reason of 
your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh — He made 

14 you alive with Him ; He forgave us all our trespasses ; He 
obliterated the condemnatory bond 2 — the bond of legal 
ordinances — which bore so hard against us ; and He has taken 

15 it out of court and nailed it to the Cross. 3 He despoiled ' the 
principalities ' and ' the authorities,' and paraded them openly 4 

1 cToixeia, cf. n. on Gal. iv. 3, p. 208. Here (cf. ver. 20) the term has 
perhaps a double reference — (1) to the 'rudimentary ideas' of Judaism and (2) to 
the Essenic sun-worship. 

2 The ancient writing material was papyrus, and since the ink did not permeate 
the fibre, it could be washed off, leaving the sheet clean. 

* Grotius sees here a reference to the custom, which prevailed in some places in 
his day and which he supposes to have prevailed in Asia, of driving a nail through 
a cancelled bond. The suggestion has been rejected on the ground that there is 
no evidence of the custom in the Apostle's day, but Gal. iii. 1 (cf. n., p. 203) is 
sufficient. It was customary to post up magisterial announcements in public, but 
here, in contempt, it is not an edict cancelling the bond that is posted up, but the 
cancelled bond itself. 

* The double compound dTrenMeadeu is apparently a Pauline coinage, occurring 
only here and iii. 9 (cf. the noun d-rrttcdvais, ii. 11). The interpretation is much 
disputed. 1. It was taken generally by the Fathers as a proper reflex, mid., 
1 having stripped Himself ' ; and then the passage was construed in two ways : 
(i) The Greek Fathers took rd$ dpx&s /cat t&s i^ovaias as the obj. of direK^vadp-evos, 
'having stripped Himself of the principalities and the authorities, He paraded 
them openly' (Chrys., Theod. Mops., Theodrt.). So Lightf oot : 'The powers 
of evil, which had clung like a Nessus robe about His humanity, were torn off and 
cast aside for ever.' (2) The Latin Fathers supplied rrjv crdpKa. as obj. of 
atr €K Sua d/xev os and construed t&s dpx. xai rds ef. with i5eLyp.dTt.cTet>, 'having 
stripped Himself of the flesh, He paraded the principalities and the authorities' 
(Ambros. Expos. Ev. sec. Luc. v. 107 ; Aug. Epist. cxlix. 26). The objection 
to both is that they involve an abrupt change of subj., making Christ the subj. in 
ver. 15. God (cf. vers. 12, 13) is the subj. throughout the passage. 2. The mid. 
is not necessarily reflex, but may denote what one does in one's own interest 
(cf . Moulton's Winer, pp. 322 ff. ) ; and so it was taken here by Hieron. 
('exspolians principatus et potestates, traduxit confidenter') and Ambrstr. ('exuens 
principatus et potestates, ostentavit in auctoritate '), ' having stripped ' or 
'despoiled the principalities and the authorities, He paraded them,' in His 
triumphal procession (cf. p. 352). eSeiyndTiffev, cf. Hor. Epist. I. xvii. 33 ; 
'captos ostendere civibus hostes,' 

2 N 



562 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

by leading them in triumphal procession in the chariot of the 
Cross. 1 

its futility Here lay the condemnation of the heresy alike in its 
fulness"* ascetic and in its speculative aspect. The reimposition of 
ceremonial ordinances was a reaffirmation of the cancelled 
bond, and the worship of angels a re-enthronement of the 
vanquished powers and a dethronement of the Victor. 
There is no need of angelic intermediaries ; for Christ is our 
Head, and in union with Him we are in vital contact with 
God in all His fulness. And this is the one secret of purity. 
Asceticism is unavailing ; for it deals with externals and 
never touches the inner springs. Nor is it merely unavail- 
ing ; it is positively mischievous. It is an affectation of 
' humility ' ; and, as the philosophic Emperor has shrewdly 
observed, ' the pride which is proud of the lack of pride, is 
most offensive of all.' 2 

16 Let no one, then, judge you in eating and in drinking or in 

17 the matter of a feast or a new moon or a Sabbath. 3 These are 
only the shadow of things to come, but the substance is the 

18 Christ's. Let no one rule you out of the prize, 4 delighting in 
' humility ' and worship of angels, poring over his visions, 5 

19 idly puffed up by his carnal mind, and not holding fast the 
Head, from whom all the Body, supplied and welded together 
by means of its joints and ligatures, grows with a God-given 

20 growth. If, when you died with Christ, you left the world's 
dim lights, why, as though still alive in the world, are you 

21 overridden by ordinances : ' Do not handle this ' ; ' Do not 

22 taste that ' ; ' Do not touch the other thing ' — things which 
all waste away when they have served their use — according to 

is. xxix. 23 the ' commandments and teachings of men ' ? These restrictions 
13 ; cf. Mt. have all a show of ' wisdom ' in self-imposed worship and 

xv. 9. r r 

1 iv avT$, i.e., iv r<p arav/xp (cf. ver. 14). The Cross is here God's triumphal 
chariot, just as it is His throne according to the Christian variant in Ps. xcvi. 
10 LXX (insisted on by Just. M., Tert., Aug.) : 6 Kvpios ipao-l\ev<rep dirb rov 
£6\ov. Cf. Lat. hymn : ' Impleta sunt quae cecinit | David fideli carmine, | Dicens 
in nationibus, | Regnavit a ligno Deus.' 

2 M. Aurelius, XII. 27 : 6 -yap vtto drv<pia ru^os rv<f>6fievos rrdvrwv x&XeirurraTos. 
8 The stereotyped catalogue of Jewish observances. Cf. I Chr. xxiii. 31 ; 

2 Chr. ii. 4, xxxi. 3 ; Ez. xlv. 17 ; Hos. ii. 11 ; Is. i. 13. 

4 KaTafipajSeveiv, of an umpire (/Spa/Sei/s) who decides against the rightful winner. 
Cf. Suid. : KaTa^pa^eveTO)' KaraXoyi^eadu), Karcucpivtro}, Karaycovi^eadh). rb &\\ov 
iyotvi^ofievov &\\ov (TTecpavovadai \eyet, 6 ' AttS&toXos KaTappaftevecBai. 

* ifxpctTetieiv, in the classics of a god ' haunting ' sacred ground (cf. Soph. O. C. 
679 ; iEsch. Pers. 449) ; in the ritual of the Greek Mysteries of the initiate 
* setting foot on ' the divine life (cf. Moulton and Milligan, Vocab.). 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 563 

' humility ' and ascetic rigour, but they possess no value for 
combating carnal indulgence. 

After thus demonstrating the futility of asceticism the Purity by 
Apostle exhibits the Christian method of attaining purity. Christ" 
The believer is united with Christ at every stage of His 
redemptive progress — His Death, His Burial, His Resurrec- cf. Rom. 
tion, His Exaltation. He not only died with Christ to this VI " x * s 
world, but he was raised with Him and lives with Him. 
Your .life,' says the Apostle, ' is hidden with the Christ in 
God. Recognise this ; seek the things which are above, 
and set your minds on them/ It is precisely the counsel 
which he had administered to his Galatian converts eight 
years previously : ' Comport yourselves by the Spirit, and Gal. v. 16. 
no desire of the flesh will you ever perform.' This is the 
golden secret. Experience has ever proved the futility of 
asceticism, and foul things were rife at Colossse. The 
remedy lay in forsaking the dead past and bieathing the 
atmosphere of the new creation, that high domain where the 
old distinctions are obliterated and the divine ideal which 
slumbers in every child of the human race, be he a wise Greek 
or a religious Jew or a degraded savage or an oppressed slave, 
is quickened and released. 

iii. 1 If, then, you were raised with the Christ, seek the things 

which are above, where the Christ is, ' seated at God's right Ps. ex. 1. 

2 hand.' Set your minds on the things which are above, not 

3 on those which are upon the earth. For you died, and your 

4 life is hidden with the Christ in God. When the Christ is 
manifested — He who is our life — then you also will be 

5 manifested with Him in glory. Mortify, then, your members 
which are upon the earth — fornication, uncleanness, sensual- 

6ity, evil desire, and the greed which is idolatry. These are the 

7 things that bring down the anger of God ; and that was the 
arena where you also comported yourselves in the days when 

8 your life was there. But now you also must lay them all off — 
anger, passion, malice, reviling, obscene talk : let it never pass 

9 your lips. Speak no falsehood against one another, since 
you have divested yourselves of the old self with its practices, 

10 and have clothed yourselves with the new self which is being 
renovated to ever fuller knowledge ' after the image of its Gen. i. 37. 

11 Creator.' And there is here no distinction between Greek 
and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, 
Scythian, slave, free man ; but Christ is everything and in 
everything. 



564 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

How to But how is it possible always to inhabit this serene domain? 

The way is simple and practical. The fountain of all evil 
is selfishness and the pride and enmity which it breeds ; 
and the remedy lies in the cultivation of a kindly, meek, 
patient, and forgiving spirit. And how may this be achieved ? 
First, says the Apostle, remember how the Lord has forgiven 
you, and you will forgive others. Nay, you will not only 
forgive ; you will love. Second, in every question which 
may arise, recognise that the supreme interest is the pre- 
servation of brotherly fellowship. Never seek a con- 
troversial triumph. Make the Peace of Christ the arbiter ; 
let it decide your differences. Again, store your mind with 
Gospel teaching and sing the songs of redemption. There is 
a blessed efficacy in a holy text or a glad hymn. And, 
finally, in everything you say or do, have Christ's approval. 

12 Clothe yourselves, then, as God's chosen, holy and beloved, 
with tender compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, long- 

13 suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving each other, if 
one has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord forgave 

14 you, so must you also. And over all these graces put on love : 

15 this is the bond of ' perfection.' And let the Christ's peace be 
umpire in your hearts ; for it is indeed to peace that you were 

16 called in one Body. And show yourselves thankful. Let the 
Christ's Word dwell within you richly. In all ' wisdom ' 
teach and admonish each other with psalms and hymns and 

17 spiritual songs in grace, singing in your hearts to God. And 
everything that you do in word or in work, do it ever in the 
name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father 
through Him. 

?°n Se f T ^ e nome * s *k e sanctuary of life, and there especially 

home. should the Christian graces be displayed. And so the 

Apostle reiterates the precepts which he had addressed in 

the encyclical to husbands and wives, parents and children, 

masters and slaves. 

18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is becoming in 

19 the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and never be bitter 

20 against them. Children, obey your parents in everything ; 

21 for this is well-pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, never irritate 
32 your children, lest they be discouraged. 1 Slaves, obey in 

everything your human lords, not in eye-service, as though 

1 Cf. p. 61. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROIN^E 565 

you had only men to please, but in simplicity of heart, 
33 fearing the Lord. Whatever you are doing, work with the 
84&oul's devotion, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing 

that from the Lord you will receive the recompense of the 

inheritance. It is to the Lord Christ that you are slaves. 

25 For one who does wrong will get back the wrong which he 

iv. 1 has done ; and there is no respect of persons. Lords, 

accord what is right and equitable to your slaves, knowing 

that you also have a Lord in Heaven. 

It was a difficult situation that the faithful Christians in The 
the valley of the Lycus occupied, confronted as they were % r °^ ct of 
with a subtle heresy and encompassed by keen and aggressive the con- 
controversialists. They were guardians of the Faith, and 
it became them to bear themselves well and commend the 
truth to the unbelieving world. And so the Apostle counsels 
them to abound in prayer ; and lest he should seem dicta- 
torial and didactic, he begs them to remember him in their 
intercessions, since he too occupied a difficult situation and 
needed the aids of heavenly grace. : Wisdom ' was a catch- 
word of the heresy, and they must exhibit a nobler wisdom. 
They must be ever watchful and miss no opportunity. 
Zeal, however, is insufficient. Controversy may confute, 
but it never convinces ; it merely exasperates. It is 
only a gracious word that prevails ; and ' grace/ says 
Samuel Rutherfurd, ' is a witty and understanding spirit, 
ripe and sharp.' 

2 Persevere in prayer ; be vigilant in it with a spirit of 

3 thankfulness ; and pray withal for us that God may open to 
us a door for the Word, so that we may tell the mystery of the 

4 Christ for the sake of which I am even in bonds, that I may 

5 make it as manifest as I should tell it. Comport yourselves in 
' wisdom ' toward those without, buying up the opportunity. 

6 Let your argument be always gracious, seasoned with salt, 1 
that you may know how you should answer every one. 

Here ends the argument. There was no need to encumber closing 
the letter with personal matters, since not onfy was Tychicus messa £ es - 
to convey it to Colossae but Onesimus, the fugitive slave, was 

1 The use of salt is twofold — (i) to preserve from corruption and to flavour (cf. 
Job vi. 6) ; and thus \6yos oXctri Tiprvfttvos is opposed to \670s <xairpb$, ' rotten talk ' 
{Eph. iv. 29), and (2) /xwpoXoyla, 'foolish' or 'insipid talking' (Eph. v. 4). 
pQpos (cf. insipidus), ' foolish,' had also the physical signification of ' insipid,' 
' tasteless.' Cf. Mt. v. 13 ; Lk. xiv. 34. 



566 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

returning thither in his company ; nevertheless the Apostle 
thought fit to enter the greetings of his companions at Rome. 
And the reason was that there were two of these who required 
his special commendation. One was John Mark. The old 
quarrel was notorious, and now that it was healed, the 
Apostle would have the happy issue known, all the more 
that Mark purposed visiting Colossse. Already, it seems, 
the Apostle had intimated this and bespoken a welcome for 
him, and now he reiterates the injunction. Then there was 
Epaphras, the Colossian Presbyter. By carrying to Rome 
a report of the controversy in the valley of the Lycus he had 
incurred not a little odium, and the Apostle takes occasion 
to certify his loyalty to the Colossians and their neighbours 
at Laodiceia and Hierapolis. The letter was addressed to 
Colossae, but it was designed equally for the neighbouring 
churches. The Apostle had never visited them, yet there 
was at least one Laodicean whom he knew. This was a 
lady named Nympha, whose house was the meeting-place of 
the Christians in the city. Doubtless, like Epaphras, she 
had visited Ephesus during his ministry there, and had been 
won by his preaching ; and so he sends his greeting to her 
and the congregation at her house. 

7 With my situation Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful 

8 minister and fellow-slave in the Lord, will acquaint you. I 
am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may be 
acquainted with our concerns, and that he may encourage your 

9 hearts ; and with him Onesimus, the faithful and beloved 
brother who is one of yourselves. They will acquaint you with 
all that is doing here. 

io Aristarchus, my fellow-captive, greets you ; and Mark, 
Barnabas' cousin — regarding him you have received my 

ii injunction : ' if he comes to you, welcome him,' — and Jesus 
called Justus. These are the only Jewish converts who are 
my fellow-workers for the Kingdom of God, and they have 

12 proved an encouragement to me. Epaphras, one of yourselves, 
greets you. He is a slave of Christ Jesus, and he is ever wrest- 
ling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand ' perfect ' 

13 and satisfied in everything that is the will of God. For I bear 
him testimony that he is deeply concerned for you and the 

14 people at Laodiceia and those at Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved 
physician, greets you, and Demas. 

15 Greet the brothers at Laodiceia, and Nympha and the Church 



I. 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 567 

16 at her house. 1 And when this letter has been read among you, 
take care that it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans, 

17 and that you also read the one from Laodiceia. 2 And say to 
Archippus : ' Look to the ministry which you received in the 
Lord, that you fulfil it.' 

And now, according to his custom, 3 he takes the pen from The sign 
his amanuensis Timothy and adds his sign-manual. His ^"^ 
writing was ungainly at the best, and it was none improved 
by the fetter dangling from his wrist ; and he surveyed the 
sprawling characters with a smile and inserted a pathetic 
apology : ' Remember my bonds.' 

18 The greeting of me Paul with my own hand. Remember 
my bonds. Grace be with you. 

1 The text here is uncertain, (i) N6/x<pav Kal tt]v kclt' otKOv chjttJs iKKhtplaVf 
'Nympha and the Church at her house' (B 67** SyrP tat ). (2) Nvfitpay koI t^w 
kclt' oXkov olvtuiv €KK\rjaiav, i Nymphas and the Church at their house ' (NACP), 
i.e., perhaps, 'the house of him and his friends.' Probably, however, airGsv is 
due to the preceding d5e\0otfs. (3) HlvfKpav Kal rty kclt* oXkov atirov iKKXrjciar, 
' Nymphas and the Church at his house ' (DEFGKL), obviously a copyist's 
correction. 

8 That is, the encyclical which Tychicus had presented at Laodiceia and brought 
on to Colossae. Each church in the Province received it from the previous town 
in the circuit : for the Colossians it was ' the letter from Laodiceia,' and for the 
Laodiceans it would be ' the letter from Hierapolis,' and so forth. It is significant 
that ' the Epistle to the Ephesians ' was entitled by Marcion ' to the Laodiceans ' 
(cf. Tert. Adv. Marc. v. 17). Until it was recognised as an encyclical, the 
reference here was a puzzle. 1. It was supposed that 'the letter from Laodiceia' 
was one, no longer extant, which Paul had written to the Laodiceans and which 
he desired the Colossians also to read ; and at an early date a forgery appeared, 
professing to be the lost letter. The text is given by Westcott {Canon, Append. E) 
and Lightfoot {Col., pp. 285 ff.). It is fatal to this theory that Paul bids the 
Colossians convey his greeting to 'the brothers at Laodiceia' (cf. ver. 15). That 
was necessary when all that the latter had from him was an impersonal encyclical, 
but it would have been unnecessary had he just written them a personal letter. 
2. Dislike of the idea that an apostolic writing had perished, accentuated by 
antipathy to the forgery, suggested another theory. It was pointed out that Paul 
speaks of a letter from, not to, Laodiceia, and hence it was argued that it was not a 
letter which he had written to the Laodiceans but one which they had written to 
him, consulting him about certain difficulties. Chrys. mentions this opinion as 
current in his day {nuts \tyovcnv) without indicating his own ; but the theory was 
warmly espoused by Theod. Mops, and Theodrt. Such a letter, however, would 
have been in Paul's own hands, and he would not have directed the Colossians to 
procure it from Laodiceia but would have sent it to them. 3. The letter was one 
which Paul had written from Laodiceia, variously identified with I Tim. (Joan. 
Damasc, Theophyl.), 1 or 2 Th., Gal. It is a sufficient answer that the Apostle 
had never visited Laodiceia (cf. ii. 1) ; and, moreover, all those canonical epistles 
were certainly written elsewhere. * Cf. p. 155. 



568 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Philemon The Apostle's task was not complete when he had finished 

household. ms letter to the Colossian Church. He had still another 

to write on behalf of Onesimus. The fugitive's master was 

cf. Phm. Philemon, who is known only from this correspondence. 

Coi^fv! 9. He was a citizen of Colossae ; and he was not only a Christian 

cf. Phm. but a convert of the Apostle, one of the fruits of his ministry 

at Ephesus. Since he owned at least one slave and probably 

cf. vers. 5, more, he was a man of means, and he was distinguished no 

less for his generosity than for his piety. His house was 

Cf. ver. 2. the Church's meeting-place, and he deserved the encomium 

Rom. xvi. which the Apostle had bestowed on Gaius of Corinth, ' my 

host and the host of the whole Church.' He kept an open 

house, and Paul compliments him by intimating his intention 

Cf. Phm. to avail himself of its lavish hospitality should he, as he 

hoped, visit Colossse in the event of his speedy release. His 

wife Apphia 1 was like-minded, and their son Archippus 2 

followed in their steps. He held some office in the Church, 

and the Apostle, who never dealt in cheap praise, styles him 

' my fellow-soldier,' a title which he has bestowed only on 

Cf. PhiL tf. one other, Epaphroditus of Philippi, and which speaks of 

25 ' strenuous devotion. It might indeed be construed as rather 

a challenge than a commendation ; and in his letter to the 

Cf. iv. 17. Colossian Church the Apostle sends Archippus an express 

and emphatic injunction to diligence in his ministry, as 

though he had been exhibiting remissness. 3 But this is 

probably an unfair judgment. It is said that ' the ministry 

which he had received ' was the charge of the Colossian 

Church during the absence of Epaphras ; 4 and in view of the 

1 Not the Latin Appia but a Phrygian name {'Airtpia) frequent in inscriptions 
(cf. Lightfoot, Col., pp. 304 ff. ; Fresh Revision, p. 186). Themasc. is 'Arrtp'ia.i'os, 
and they are derived from dircpd, a term of endearment for a brother or sister, 
&Tr<pvs being the corresponding term for a father (Suidas). 

* Cf. Phm. 2, where the addition kclI ttj /car' oikqv gov iKK\rjaia indicates that 
Philemon, Apphia, and Archippus belonged to one household, the natural inference 
being that Philemon and Apphia were husband and wife and Archippus their son. 
It is curious that Theod. Mops, alone of the Greek Fathers draws this inference. 
Chrys. recognises Philemon and Apphia as husband and wife but dismisses 
Archippus as ertpov riva, to~u)s <pi\ov. 

8 Cf. Chrys. : rivos eveKev ov ypd<p€i irpbs avrbv ; taws ovk iSelro, dXKcl \f/ikrjs fiovrjn 
inro(ivf]<re<j)s {bare <nrovdcu6Tepos elvai. 

4 Cf. Ambrstr. : ' Post enim Epaphram, qui illos imbuit, hie accepit regendam 
eorum Ecclesiam.' Since the warning to Archippus follows greetings to the 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 569 

anxiety of the latter for his people's welfare, all the more cf. Coi. iv. 
since he contemplated remaining a while at Rome, it was I2< I3- 
natural that the Apostle should, without reproach, exhort the 
young teacher to gird himself to his heavy task. 

Whether there were other members of Philemon's family or Roman 
no, these were not his entire household. Slavery was a slaves - 
universal institution in the ancient world, and it was a poor 
house which had not its retinue of slaves. Ten were accounted 
a beggarly array, too few for dignity and barely enough 
for respectability. 1 Incessant conquest flooded Rome's 
slave-market with prisoners of war, and the abundant wealth 
of her citizens enabled them to maintain large households. 
Some were enormous. Just as ten were the fewest that 
decency permitted, so two hundred constituted an adequate 
equipment ; 2 but this number was frequently far exceeded, 
and it is recorded that in the time of Augustus a wealthy 
freedman, C. Caecilius Claudius Isidorus, notwithstanding 
considerable losses during the Civil War, left in his will 41 16 
slaves. 3 Of course wealthy Romans had their country 
estates as well as their town-houses, and such vast numbers 
included both the urbana and the rustica familia. The 
latter, being employed in tillage, would be the more numerous ; 
nevertheless the domestic entourage was very large, and 
Horace speaks of the ridicule which the Praetor Tillius 
incurred because, on the journey of sixteen miles between 
Rome and Tivoli, he was attended by only five slaves. 4 

The lot of the ancient slave was pitiful. 5 He was defined Their hard 
by Aristotle as ' a live chattel,' and again as ' a live implement,' 
whereas an implement was ' a lifeless slave.' 6 And if this 
was his condition in Greece, it was worse at Rome, where 
luxury had hardened men's hearts. In the eye of the law 
slaves were not persons (persona) but things (res). They 

Laodiceans (cf. Col. iv. 15-17), Theod. Mops, infers that Laodiceia, not Colossse, 
was the scene of his ministry ; and Lightfoot approves the suggestion, illustrating 
the alleged remissness of Archippus by the prevalent lukewarmness of the 
Laodiceans (cf. Rev. iii. 15, 16). 

1 Hor. Sat. 1. iii. 11 f. ; Val. Max. IV. iv. II. * Hor. ibid. 

8 Plin. Nat. Hist, xxxni. 47. * Sat. I. vi. 107-9. 

* Cf. Becker, Charicles, Excurs. to Sc. vii ; Gallus, Excurs. to Sc. I. 

6 De Rep. 1. 4 : koX 6 8ov\os ktt)/j.& tl 2/j.\}/vxov. Eth. Nic. vui. 13 : 6 y&p 
$©v\os %iA\bvxov 6pyavov, rb 54 tpyavov tf^ir^os dov\os 



570 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

were their master's property, and he accounted them as 
cattle. 1 Like cattle they were bought and sold. They were 
stripped, and exposed, with a placard on their necks stating 
their qualities and blemishes, on a pedestal in the market, 
that intending purchasers might inspect and handle them, 
and they were trotted round like horses to prove their 
agility. 2 And they got names like those bestowed on horses 
and dogs — Onesimus, ' Profitable,' Chresimus, ' Useful,' 
Symphorus, ' Suitable,' Epictetus, ' Acquired,' and so forth. 
They were mated, too, like cattle. Their union was not 
marriage (matrimonium) ; it was mere cohabitation (con- 
tubernium), and their offspring were their master's property, 
Cruelty, an increase of his herd. They were absolutely at his mercy ; 
and though a humane master would treat his slaves kindly, 
humanity was rare in ' that hard Pagan world.' It is told of 
Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, that he was taken in child- 
hood to Rome from his native Hierapolis, just about the time 
when the Apostle was there, and sold to Epaphroditus, the 
profligate freedman of Nero ; 3 and one day his brutal master 
was amusing himself by torturing him. He twisted his leg. 
' You are breaking it,' the child remonstrated. The ruffian 
persisted, and broke it ; and all that the little Stoic said 
was : ' Didn't I tell you that you were breaking it ? ' 4 
Such barbarities were painfully frequent. Offences were 
mercilessly punished. 5 Runaways (fugitivi) and pilferers 
(fures) were branded on the forehead with the letter F. 6 
Scourging was common ; 7 and so was crucifixion, the 
servile supplicium, 8 and it was often accompanied with brutal 
outrages — the hacking off of a limb or the cutting out of the 
tongue. 9 Slaves were cast to the wild beasts in the circus ; 

1 Cf . Sen. Epist. xlvii : ' nee tanquam hominibus quidem sed tanquam jumentis 
abutimur.' 

* Cf. Plaut. Bacch. IV. vii. 17 ; Cic. In Pis. 15, De OJu. III. 17 ; Hor. 
Epist. 11. ii. 1- 19; Prop. IV. v. 51 f. ; Sen. Epist. lxxx. 

* Cf. Epict. 1. i. 20. 

* Orig. Contra Cels. vn. 53. The story is perhaps attested by the philosopher's 
own words (I. xii. 24) : <r/cAos o$v p.ot yevecrdai ireirvpunevov ; avbp&irodov, etra ol 
tv ffKeMSpiov T<£ icocr/jap iyi«x\eh ; 8 Sen. De Ira, ill. 3. 

* Plaut. Cas. 11. vi. 49, Aul. II. iv. 46 ; Mart. Epigr. III. xxi ; Diog. Laert. 
Bion. iv. 46. 7 Cf. Juv. xiv.iSf. 8 Hor. Epist. I. xvi. 47. 

9 Cf. Sen, De Ira, in. 3: ' lacerationes membrorum.' Cic. Pro Cluent. 66: 
'Stratonern quidem in crucem actum esse exsecta scitote lingua.' 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 571 

and it is said that a Roman knight, Vedius Pollio, practised 
a savage refinement on this atrocity. He had at his villa, 
after the luxurious fashion of the age, 1 a fishpond for the 
supply of his table, and offending slaves were thrown into 
it that he might enjoy the spectacle of the lampreys tearing 
their bodies. 2 Once, when Augustus was dining with him, a 
slave chanced to break a crystal cup, and Vedius ordered him 
to be thrown to the lampreys. The wretch escaped from the 
grasp of his executioners and cast himself at the Emperor's 
feet, asking only that he might be put to some less horrible 
death. Shocked by the cruelty, Augustus ordered that all 
the crystal cups should be broken in his presence and that 
the pond should be filled up. 3 

So trivial were the offences which were held to justify Contempt 
retribution so severe. And even when they gave no pro- 
vocation, the slaves were treated with stern insolence. As 
they waited at table, they durst not speak or so much as 
move their lips. A whisper was checked with the rod ; a 
cough, a sneeze, or a sigh was punished with scourging, and 
a word breaking the silence incurred a heavy penalty. 4 There 
were indeed masters, especially humanitarians of the Stoic 
school, who practised benevolence. * I am glad,' writes 
Seneca to his friend Lucilius, 5 ' to be informed that you 
live familiarly with your slaves. This becomes your 
prudence and your erudition. Are they slaves ? Nay, 
they are men. Are they slaves ? Nay, sharers of our 
dwellings. Are they slaves ? Nay, humble friends. Are 
they slaves ? Nay, fellow-slaves. This is the gist of my 
injunction : so live with an inferior as you would wish a 
superior to live with you. Live kindly with your slave ; 
courteously admit him to your conversation, to your counsel, 
and to your board. Let some dine with you because they 
are worthy, and some that they may be so/ This seemed, 
however, in those days grotesque eccentricity, and the 
prevalent sentiment was represented by Nero's freedman 
Pallas, the brother of the Procurator Felix, of whom it is 
recorded 6 that he would not degrade his voice by addressing 

1 Cf. Mart. Epigr. x. xxx. 21-4. ? Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 39. 

* Sen. De Ira, ill. 40. * Cf. Sen. Epist. xlvii. 

* Ibid. • Tac. Ann. XIII, 23. 



572 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

his slaves, and intimated his wishes by a nod or a gesture or, 

where necessary, by writing. This may have been extreme 

insolence, yet it was characteristic of Roman society ; and 

the general attitude is amusingly exemplified by an anecdote 

of Piso the orator. 1 His rule was that his slaves should never 

presume to address him save in answer to questions ; and 

once he invited Clodius to a banquet. At the stated hour 

all the guests arrived except Clodius, and Piso repeatedly 

sent the slave who had conveyed the invitations, to see if he 

were coming. ' Did you invite him ? ' he at length inquired. 

' I did/ was the reply. ' Then why has he not come ? ' 

' He declined/ ' Then how did you not tell me at once ? ' 

' Because you did not ask me this/ Even in the kindlier 

Greek world a like restraint was imposed, and the prohibition 

of ' freedom of speech ' was accounted the worst hardship 

Cf. Eph. of a slave's lot 2 — a circumstance which illumines the thought 

jaffi/az, m * ne rainds of the Apostles when they reckon 'freedom 

v - J 4- of speech toward God ' as the supreme privilege of recon- 

cf. Gai. iv. ciliation. It is the privilege of sonship : we are no longer 
7^ jo. xv. s j aves k u j. sons 

Danger of There was indeed a measure of excuse for such severity 
tion/ in the overwhelming numbers of the slaves. The population 
of Rome under Augustus and Tiberius was about two million 
souls ; and of these, it is reckoned, 3 between eight and nine 
hundred thousand were slaves, while the proportion was 
much larger in rural Italy. The presence of so vast a 
multitude of indignant serfs was a constant menace, and the 
peril was illustrated not merely by the memory of the Servile 
Wars in Sicily in the later years of the second century B.C. 
but by more recent insurrections nearer home. 4 It was a 
common proverb : totidem esse hosles quot servos, ' so many 
slaves, just so many enemies ' ; 5 and though the philosopher 
counselled that they should be won by kindness, 6 it seemed a 
surer policy to hold them down with a strong hand and 
intimidate them by terrible examples. There was an old law 
that, if a slave murdered his master, not he alone but all 

x Plut. De GarruL 18. * Eur. Pkcm. 390-92. 

8 Furneaux, Annals of T'acitus, I. p. 90. 

* Tac. Ann. iv. 27. • Sen. EfisU xlvii, 

* Ibid. : ' colant potius te quam timeant* 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 573 

his fellow-slaves should be put to death ; and in a.d. 61, 
the very year when the Apostle wrote to Philemon on behalf 
of his fugitive, a case occurred which startled Rome. The 
Prefect of the city, Pedanius Secundus, was murdered by an 
aggrieved slave ; and after an impassioned discussion in the 
Senate, the law was enforced, and the entire farnilia, four 
hundred unoffending creatures of both sexes and every age, 
shared the criminal's doom. 1 

Slavery was thus a monstrous institution, an outrage on a recog- 
humanity and religion ; nevertheless it is no marvel that stftutiSn. 
Philemon, that distinguished Christian, should have owned 
slaves, nor yet that Paul should have entered no protest. 
The institution was universally recognised, and it had been 
approved by the wisest teachers of antiquity. Thus, in Approved 
depicting his ideal state, it never occurred to Plato that J nd 
there should be no slaves in it. His only requirement was A" 810116 * 
that the Greeks should spare their own race and not make 
slaves of fellow-Greeks. 2 And Aristotle defended the in- 
stitution on the principle that there are differences between 
men : some are naturally slaves, since it is right that the 
better should rule the worse, as the soul rules the body and The stoic 
the husband the wife. 3 Even the Stoics never challenged 
its legitimacy. Freedom, they held, lies in the soul, not in 
the body. The body is external to the man and, like any 
other of his possessions, belongs to the category of ' things 
indifferent,' things which are not in his power and therefore 
should cost him no concern. ' He is free/ says Epictetus, 4 
' who lives as he wills.' ' No one is a slave while he is free 
in his choice.' ' Fortune is a sore bond of the body, but the 
soul's only bond is vice. For one whose body is at large 
while his soul is in bonds is a slave ; and, contrariwise, 
one whose body is in bonds while his soul is at large, is free.' 5 
" I will put you in bonds." Man, what are you saying ? 
Me ? My leg you will put in bonds, but my choice not even 
Zeus can conquer. " I will throw you into prison." My 
poor body. " I will behead you." Well, when did I tell you 
that my neck, unlike all others, could not be severed ? ' 6 

1 Tac. Ann. XIV. 42-5. 8 Plat. Rep. V. 469. 

* ArisL Rep. I. 13. * IV. i. I. 

* Fragm. 31, 32 (Schenkl). 6 I. i. 23, 24. 



574 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

J he j , Such was the Stoic attitude, and the Apostle's was much 
attitude, similar. The enslavement of the body was nothing to him. 
12°^'. V1 * I* 1 his eyes sin was the only slavery, and Christ's slave was the 

i Cor. vii. on ]y f ree man# Hence it never occurred to him to condemn 

20-24. 

Cf. 1 Cor. the institution of slavery. It belonged to the old order 

Gsd/m! 28 ; which Christ had for ever abolished. It was doomed by the 
Coi. in. 11. Christian revelation of the universal Fatherhood of God 
with its corollary, the universal brotherhood of man. And 
thus, when he wrote to Philemon on behalf of his fugitive 
slave, he did not require him to emancipate Onesimus ; he 
imposed a larger injunction : ' Welcome him back no longer 
as a slave but something more than a slave — a brother 
beloved.' 
His letter This letter has a peculiar interest as the only surviving 
mon. specimen of the Apostle's private correspondence ; and it 
well deserves a place in the sacred canon. It contains indeed 
no doctrine, and for this reason, St. Jerome tells us, it was 
rejected by not a few in early days : ' it is not Paul's,' they 
alleged, ' or, even if it be Paul's, it contains nothing to edify 
2 Tim. iii. us.' But the purpose of doctrine, as the Apostle says, is 
' that the man of God may be perfect, equipped for every 
good work ' ; and the letter shows how well the Apostle's 
doctrine had served its use in his own person. It is the 
letter of a Christian gentleman, kindly, courteous, tactful, 
unselfish, and chivalrous, not too proud to solicit a favour 
cf. Coi. iv. yet incapable of servility, and withal possessing that quality 
6 * of humour which is the salt of social intercourse. It is the 

sort of appeal which is irresistible. Philemon would recog- 
nise, when he read it, that the debt lay with him — a debt 
which he could never discharge. 



LETTER TO PHILEMON 

1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy the brother, 

2 to Philemon, our dear friend and fellow - worker, and 
Apphia the sister, and Archippus our fellow-soldier, and 

3 the Church at your house. Grace to you all and peace from 
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

4 I thank my God always and make mention of you in my 

5 prayers, when I hear of your love and faith — the faith which 
you have toward the Lord Jesus and your love for all the 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 575 

6 saints — that the generosity which your faith inspires may, 
in a full discovery of all the good that is among us, effect 

7 a closer union with Christ. For I have found much joy 
and encouragement in your love, because the hearts of the 
saints have been refreshed through you, brother. 

8 And therefore, while I have in Christ no hesitation in 

9 enjoining upon you what is becoming, for love's sake 
I rather beseech, though I be the man I am — Paul, 
an ambassador 1 but now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus. 

10 1 beseech you for my child whom I have begotten in my 

11 prison — Onesimus, once so useless to you, but now right 

12 useful both to you and to me. 2 I am sending him back to 

13 you, though it is like tearing out my very heart. I would 
fain have retained him by my side to minister on your 

14 behalf to me while I am in prison for the Gospel; but I 
decided to do nothing without your approval, that your 
goodness may not be a matter of necessity but your own 

15 free act. For perhaps it was for this reason that he was 
severed from you lor a brief hour — that you might have him 

16 back for ever, no longer as a slave but something more than 
a slave, a brother beloved, most of all to me, but how much 
more than ' most of all ' to you, both as a fellow-creature 
and as a fellow-Christian ! 

1.7 If, then, you hold me your fellow, receive him as you 

18 would myself. And if he has done you any wrong or is in 

19 your debt, put this to my account — I Paul write it with 
my own hand : I will repay it 3 — not to mention to you 

1 irpea^irris in classical Greek is ' an aged man ' and 7rpe<r/Seur?fc ' an ambassador' ; 
but it seems certain tbat irpea^vrrjs means 'an ambassador' here, (i) Since the 
Apostle was about sixty, he might fairly have designated himself 'an aged man,' 
but he could hardly have urged his age as a plea for deference on the part of 
Philemon, who, if Archippus was his son, could be little younger. (2) wvl d4, 
' but now,' makes nrpea^vry]^ and detx/xtos antitheses, contrasting the dignity of the 
ambassador and the ignominy of the prisoner. (3) The Apostle's language here 
is an expansion of his phrase Trptsfivju iv aAwm (Eph. vi. 20). Though Trpea^vr-qs 
is given by all MSS., Bentley conjectured TrpeaftevTi'is as the true reading, and the 
frequent confusion of the two forms elsewhere would warrant the emendation. It 
is, however, unnecessary, since it appears that in later Greek they were inter- 
changeable in the sense of ' an ambassador. ' Cf . Lightf oot. 

8 A play on the name Onesimus, ' Profitable. ' 

* Here Paul takes the pen from his amanuensis Timothy and playfully writes 
and signs a debtor's bond, his 'note of hand' (xeipoypcMpov), just as he had given 
the Philippians 'a receipt of payment' (cf. n. on Phil. iv. 18, p. 521). The 
debtor's formula was dirodioact}, ' I will repay,' or as here the stronger airoTi<r<o, 
implying liability to punishment or fine ; and the formula of acquittance was 
dWxw, 'I have received.' The formula had to be written with the party's own 
hand, or, if he could not write, a proxy wrote it for him with the note Hypcuj/a 
virkp aiirov. Cf. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, pp. 334 f. 



57 6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

20 that you owe me more than this — your very self. Yes, 
brother, let me have ' profit ' x of you in the Lord ; refresh 
my heart in Christ. 

21 I am writing to you with full confidence in your compli- 
ance, knowing that you will do far more than I mention. 

22 And at the same time prepare hospitality for me ; 2 for I 
am hoping that through your prayers I shall be granted to 
you. 

23 Epaphras, my fellow-captive 3 in Christ Jesus, greets 

24 you ; also Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow- 
workers. 

25 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with the 
spirit of you and yours. 

1 Another play on 'Onesimus.' 8 £eviav, cf. p. 502. 

* Epaphras, like Aristarchus (Col. iv. 10), is thus styled on account of his 
assiduous attendance on the captive Apostle (cf. p. 522). 



BOOK IV 
THE CLOSING YEARS 

' O, but they say the tongues of dying men 
Enforce attention like deep harmony : 
Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain, 
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain. 
He that no more must say is listen'd more 

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose ; 
More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before : 

The setting sun, and music at the close, 
As the last taste of sweets is sweetest last, 
Writ in remembrance more than things long past' 

Shakespeare. 



2 



THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM 

The narrative of the Book of Acts recounts the Apostle's History of 
career from his conversion in the summer of 33 until his o^Acts! 
arrival at Rome in the spring of 60. He was brought thither 
as a prisoner in consequence of his appeal to the Emperor's 
judgment, and his trial was unexpectedly deferred. He was 
detained in libera custodia, occupying a private lodging and, 
though fettered and guarded, enjoying the society of his 
friends and freely conversing with all who chose to visit 
him. There the narrative leaves him, merely intimating 
that his captivity was protracted for two full years. Evi- 
dently he was then brought to trial ; and, since there is no 
further record, the inference would seem to be that he was 
condemned and executed. 

Against this conclusion, however, there are weighty con- No place 
siderations ; and the chief is presented by that group of IheVas- 
three letters, commonly known as 'the Pastoral Epistles/ g r J tte . 
which claim the Apostle as their author. It is not the least 
service which Luke has rendered to the Church, that he has 
illumined the correspondence of his beloved master. The 
latterteemswith personal, local, and controversial references; 
and these, were they undefined, would be frequently puzzling 
and sometimes quite unintelligible. The Book of Acts, 
however, furnishes the contemporary background, and 
against this the Apostle's correspondence lives and moves 
and exhibits a varied and thrilling drama. Ten of his 
letters have hitherto fallen naturally and fittingly into 
position ; but here is the difficulty which the Pastorals 
present and which constitutes the main reason why their 
authenticity has been so largely disputed — that they find 
no place in the historical framework. 

Consider the First Letter to Timothy. It appears that, Timothy, 

579 



580 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

ct i $. 4, wn en the Apostle wrote it, he was at liberty. He had been at 
Ephesus and had found false teachers at work there ; and 
on his departure for Macedonia he had left Timothy behind 
him to counteract their mischievous activities. It was a 
difficult ministry, and the purpose of the letter was to 
encourage Timothy in its prosecution. Where in the 
historical narrative can this incident be assigned a place ? 
Twice, and only twice, is it recorded that the Apostle visited 

Cf. Ac. Ephesus. He called there in the course of his homeward 

xviii. 19-21. voyage from Corinth at the close of his second mission in 
spring 53 ; but this cannot have been the occasion in question, 
for on taking his departure then he did not travel to Macedonia 
but continued his voyage eastward to Caesarea. Nor had 
Christianity then been established in Ephesus ; whereas, 
when the letter was written, there was a church in the city 
completely organised. His other appearance at Ephesus 
was in the ensuing autumn, and on this occasion he con- 
tinued there for two years and a quarter. Thereafter, it 
is true, he proceeded to Macedonia ; but he did not leave 
Timothy behind : he had despatched him in advance to 
Corinth by way of Macedonia. So neither is there a foothold 

C£ UL 14. for the letter here. It has been suggested * that he may have 
paid a hasty visit to Macedonia in the course of his protracted 
ministry in the Asian capital, leaving Timothy in charge of 
the Church during his absence, and it lends colour to the 
hypothesis that he actually paid such a visit to Oorinth, 
though it is unrecorded in the Book of Acts. 2 The hypothesis, 
however, is ruled out not merely by the improbability that 
the Asian heresy should in so brief a space have attained 
such dimensions as the letter represents, but by the fact 
that in his interview with the Ephesian Elders in spring 57 

Cf. Ac. xx. upwards of a year after his departure from the city he warned 
them of the impending danger. The heresy which was 
rampant when he wrote the letter, was then still undeveloped. 

{2) Letter And what of the Letter to Titus ? The situation here is 
that Paul had visited Crete in company with Titus, and had 

Cf. i. 5. left him there to complete the organisation of the churches 
in the island. It was after his departure from Crete that he 

1 Cf . Wieseler, Chronolog, des apostol. Zeitalters^ p. 286. 
* Cf. p. 326. 



THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM 581 

wrote the letter ; and when he wrote it, he contemplated cf. m. i». 
spending the winter at Nicopolis. On the assumption that 
it belongs to his recorded ministry, what place can be found 
for this episode ? His sole connection with Crete was the a. Ac. 
view he had of it from the bay of Fair Havens while the ship xxvw 7 " 13 * 
which was carrying him to Rome lay there wind-bound. 
The centurion Julius had indeed allowed him to land at cr ver. 3. 
Sidon and enjoy the society of his friends at the Phcenician 
port ; but there is no evidence that he went ashore at Fair 
Havens, and even if he did, he had no time for winning 
converts and founding churches, since it seems that the ship 
stayed in the anchorage little over a week. Nor was Titus 
with him. His companions in the voyage were Luke and 
Aristarchus. It is indeed conceivable that somewhere in 
the course of his travels he may have paid a visit to Crete 
and engaged in a mission which the Book of Acts has left 
unnoticed ; but this is improbable, and the improbability 
becomes extreme when it is remembered that his visit to 
Crete was followed by a winter's sojourn at Nicopolis, which 
also is unrecorded in the Book of Acts. It is inconceivable 
that so important and protracted an episode should have been 
ignored by the historian, nor is there room for it in the 
crowded narrative. 

And what of the Second Letter to Timothy ? It was (3) Second 
plainly written on the very eve of the Apostle's martyrdom ; cr. iv! 6-8. 
and, on the assumption that it belongs to his recorded history, 
then it has its place at the close of the Book of Acts. It is 
there stated that he was detained a prisoner at Rome for 
two full years, and it is assumed that, when at length he 
was brought to trial, he was condemned and executed. 
Timothy was apparently at Ephesus, and the Apostle, fore- cf. ir. 9* 
seeing the fatal issue, wrote and summoned him to Rome. I3 ' 

This construction of the situation, however, involves 
insuperable difficulties. Timothy was not at Ephesus at the 
close of the two years' imprisonment. He was at Rome, 
and he had acted as the Apostle's amanuensis when, near the 
close, he wrote his letters to Colossae and Philemon. More- 
over, Paul had then been a captive for upwards of four 
consecutive years. He had passed two years in prison at 
Caesarea, and had been conducted thence to Rome and there 



582 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

had passed two more weary years in bonds. Yet in this 
letter to Timothy he refers to incidents which had lately 
happened in the course of his travels in the East— how he 
cf. iv. 13- had left his mantle and some precious literature at Troas, 
had parted from Erastus at Corinth, and had left Trophimus 
at Miletus sick. 
Pecuiiari- It thus appears that there is no place for the Pastorals in 
Pastorals* the recorded history of the Apostle's ministry ; and this 
further must be considered — that they are differentiated 
from the rest of his letters by peculiarities of style, language, 
style. and ideas. One misses in them his rugged and nervous 
eloquence, his glowing passion, his massive argumentation, 
the rush of his eager dialectic, his crowding thoughts, and his 
frequent digressions. The difference is indeed unmistakable, 
yet it in nowise precludes identity of authorship. It is a 
difference, not of personality, but merely of mood and cir- 
cumstances ; and it is a sufficient explanation, were there no 
other, that the Pastorals are private letters dealing mainly 
with practical affairs. 
Language. Less impalpable and elusive than the quality of style is the 
distinction of language ; and the fact confronts us that the 
Pastorals abound in novel terms, alien from the Apostle's 
recognised vocabulary. Thus in the first letter to Timothy, 
which occupies six and a half pages in Westcott and Hort's 
edition, there are 123 peculiarities — over 18 to the page ; 
in the second letter to Timothy, with four and three-quarter 
pages, there are 80 — about 17 to the page ; and in the letter 
to Titus, with two and three-quarter pages, there are 43 — 
about 16 to the page. There are, moreover, 49 terms peculiar 
to the Pastorals, occurring in two or all of them and nowhere 
else in the Pauline writings. Thus the group exhibits in all 
295 peculiarities — about 21 to the page. 
Gompan- And what does this mean ? It has been construed as a 
other conclusive evidence against the Pauline authorship of the 
groups : pastorals : their speech bewrays them. But consider the 
other letters. These fall into chronological groups, plainly 
(1) The distinguished by their linguistic peculiarities. The first 
Ionian group is the two letters to the Thessalonians, written in the 
rs - autumn of 51 and dealing with the eschatological problem. 
That was the Apostle's earliest controversy, and his language 



THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM 583 

is simple and untechnical. The first letter, with five and a 
half pages, exhibits 35 peculiarities ; and the second, with 
three pages, 19 — in both instances fully 6 to the page. 
There is, besides, one term which occurs in both and nowhere 
else in the Pauline writings ; and thus there are in all 55 
peculiarities in the group or between 6 and 7 to the page. The 
second group comprises the letter to the Galatians (June 53), (2) Those 
the first to the Corinthians (early summer 55), the second t othe glng 
to the Corinthians (close of 55 — autumn 56), and the encyclical J udaist 

\ *j*j vv /' j contro- 

' to the Romans ' (beginning of 57) . It belongs to the period versy. 
of the Judaist controversy ; and this is the motif of Galatians 
and Romans, while the Corinthian letters deal also with the 
special problems which had emerged in the Achaian capital. 
It was inevitable that the necessities of this complex 
argumentation should develop and enlarge the Apostle's 
vocabulary ; and so we find in the Galatian letter, with eight 
pages, 70 peculiarities— almost 9 to the page ; in First 
Corinthians, with twenty-four pages, 233 — almost 10 to the 
page ; in Second Corinthians, with sixteen and a half pages, 
166 — fully 10 to the page ; and in Romans, with twenty-six 
pages, 180 — about 7 to the page. There are also 174 words 
occurring in two or more of the group and nowhere else in 
the Pauline writings. And thus the sum of peculiarities (3). The 
is 823 — fully 11 to the page. The third group is composed Epistles. 
of the Prison Epistles : Philippians (toward the close of 60), 
a letter of grateful acknowledgment ; Ephesians and 
Colossians (early in 62), dealing with the incipient Gnosticism 
of the Province of Asia ; and their companion, the little 
letter to Philemon. Philippians, with six pages, has 65 
peculiarities — almost 11 to the page ; Ephesians, with eight 
and three-quarter pages, 74 — between 8 and 9 to the page ; 
Colossians, with six pages, 55 — fully 9 to the page ; and 
Philemon, with a page and a quarter, 8 — between 6 and 7 to 
the page. There are also 20 words which are common to 
Ephesians and Colossians and occur nowhere else in the 
Pauline writings ; and in the entire group there are 229 
occurring nowhere else in the Pauline writings — between 10 
and 11 to the page. 1 
Thus it emerges that the letters which relate to each of Later date 

1 Cf. Append. VII. 



5 3 4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



of the 

Pastorals, 



Evidence 
for the 
Apostle's 
later 
ministry : 

i. Incom- 
pleteness 
Of Luke's 
narrative. 



the historic controversies are plainly distinguished and the 
members of each group linked together by linguistic peculiar- 
ities. And when it is found that the Pastorals are similarly 
distinguished, being marked off from the other letters and 
interrelated by a still larger array of linguistic peculiarities, 
it follows not only that they constitute a separate group 
but that they belong, not to the Apostle's recorded ministry, 
but to a later period when novel conditions had arisen, new 
ideas, new problems, new institutions. 

Hence it would appear that, if it was indeed Paul who 
wrote the Pastorals, his career did not end where the history 
closes ; and the inference is strongly attested. In his 
preface to the Book of Acts Luke refers to his Gospel, and it 
is significant that he styles it not ' the former ' but ' the 
first narrative.' * He has left only two narratives ; and had 
these been all that he had in view, then, when he referred in 
the second to its predecessor, he would have designated it 
' the former,' and his phrase ' the first narrative ' suggests 
that he had an ampler plan. He purposed writing a history 
of the origin and progress of the Christian Faith, and his 
Gospel was the first of a series of ' narratives.' It was 
followed by a second, our Book of Acts ; but this did not 
complete his design. He had yet another ' narrative ' in 
contemplation, and it would have carried the history down 
toward the close of the first century, if there be truth in the 
tradition that he died at the age of seventy-four. His death 
arrested his literary labours, and his monumental work 
remains incomplete. The third ' narrative ' was never 
written, and the Book of Acts evinces this by the abruptness 
of its conclusion. It leaves the Apostle a prisoner at Rome 
with the intimation that his captivity lasted ' two whole 
years/ thus plainly suggesting that thereafter something 
happened and the historian intended relating the issue in the 
ensuing narrative. What the issue may have been—whether 
the condemnation and execution of the Apostle or his acquittal 

* Ac. i. I : rbv irpurov \6yov. The mere linguistic argument is not indeed 
conclusive, since in Hellenistic Greek the distinction between compar. and superl. 
was largely ignored (cf. Moulton, Proleg. y pp. 77 ff.) and irpdros was freely used 
for Trpdrepos (cf. Mt xxi. 36; I Cor. xiv. 30; Heb. x. 9; Rev. xxi. i). But the 
distinction was in nowise obliterated, and it would hardly be neglected by Luke 
A literary Greek. Cf . Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 27 f . 



THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM 585 

and release — is left uncertain ; but had it been the former, it 
would have been easily told, and the reservation suggests 
that much still remained. The prisoner was released and 
resumed his ministry, and the next narrative would have 
recounted his further travels and achievements. 

Nor does this inference lack express corroboration. It 2. The 
appears, on the Apostle's own testimony, that, as his testimony. 
captivity dragged on its weary course, his prospects steadily 
brightened. Already toward the close of the year 60, though Phil. u. 24. 
the issue remained uncertain, he had good hope of release ; 
and thereafter his confidence so increased that about the 
beginning of 62 he could bid Philemon expect his speedy Phm. 22. 
arrival at Colossse and prepare for his entertainment. And 3- Pnmi- 
according to primitive and trustworthy testimony his tradition 
expectation was realised. In the last decade of the first 
century St. Clement of Rome, remonstrating with the con- Clemens 
tentious Christians at Corinth, appealed to historic examples. 
: To leave,' he says, ' the ancient examples, let us pass to the 
champions who lived nearest to our day. By reason of 
jealousy and strife Paul pointed the way to the prize of 
endurance. After he had seven times worn bonds, had been 
exiled, had been stoned, had played the herald in the East 
and in the West, he won the noble renown of his faith, having 
taught the whole world righteousness and passed to the 
boundary of the West. And after testifying before the 
rulers so was he rid of the world and went to the Holv Place, 
having proved a very great exemplar of endurance.' x If, 
as seems indubitable. 2 by ' the boundary of the West ' be 
meant the Pillars of Hercules, there is here a plain testimony 
by a contemporary of the Apostles that Paul not only was 
released and resumed his ministry but fulfilled his long cf. Rom. 
cherished purpose of visiting Spain. And this is explicitly xv * 28 * 
affirmed by that valuable document, the Muratorian Frag- Mura- 
ment, a mutilated and corrupt manuscript discovered in x £^* n 
1740 in the Ambrosian Library at Milan by an Italian 
scholar, Ludovico Antonio Muratori. Its author is unknown, 
but he mentions that he was a contemporary of Pius, Bishop 
of Rome (143-157). It was written at Rome after the death 
of Pius, probably about the year 170 ; and it says : ' The 

1 Ciem. Rom. Ad Car. Y. ■ Cf. Lightfoot ad lot. 



586 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Statement 
of Theo- 
dore of 
Mop- 
suestia. 



Acts of all the Apostles are written in one book. Luke puts 
it shortly to the most excellent Theophilus that the several 
events were enacted in his presence, as he also evidently 
indicates by omitting the passion of Peter as well as Paul's 
departure from the city on his journey to Spain/ Here 
the Apostle's release and his journey to Spain are assumed 
as notorious facts. 

It is needless to adduce the testimonies of later writers — 
Eusebius, St. Athanasius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, 
and St. Jerome ; but it is worth while to quote the explicit 
statement of Theodore of Mopsuestia. ' St. Paul,' he says., 
' twice visited Rome during the reign of Nero. First on his 
appeal to Festus in Judaea, when the latter to please the Jews 
would have sent him to Jerusalem. So he was conducted a 
prisoner to Rome ; and thence, on his release by Nero's 
judgment, he was ordered to depart in safety. After his 
two years' stay at Rome he departed, and is seen to have 
preached to many the doctrine of piety. On a second 
occasion, however, he visited Rome, and while he stayed 
there it happened that by the sentence of Nero he suffered 
capital punishment for the preaching of piety.' * The passage 
survives only in a rude Latin version, but its meaning is 
indubitable. The Apostle suffered two imprisonments at 
Rome in the reign of Nero. The former followed on his 
appeal at Csesarea to the Emperor's judgment, and it lasted 
for two years. Then he was brought to trial and acquitted 
and ordered to quit the capital. He resumed his apostolic 
labours and preached extensively ; and by and by he paid a 
second visit to Rome and was again arrested. On this 
occasion apparently he suffered no long imprisonment. 
He was promptly tried and sentenced to death. 

Hence, though it is impossible to find a place for the 
Pastorals in the framework of his recorded ministry, it in 
2^ ns? no wise follows that they are not writings of the Apostle. 
The narrative of the Book of Acts is incomplete, and it is 
reasonable to seek a resting-place for the letters in the 
ensuing period. The question, however, arises whether the 
peculiarities of language and thought which exclude them 
from his recorded ministry, be consistent even with this 

1 Theod. Mops. Ad Ephesios Argitmentum. 



Are the 

Pastorals 

second 



THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM 587 

later date. The fact presents itself that, while each of the 
previous groups is distinguished by its linguistic peculiarities, 
the peculiarities of the Pastorals are much more numerous — 
ihrice as many as those of the first group and twice as many 
as those of the second and third. And it has been alleged, 
moreover, that the letters breathe the atmosphere of a far 
later period. They exhibit theological ideas which are alien cf. 2 Tim. 
from the Apostle's recognised thought, giving, for example, |; ^ ^ 
the epithet of ' Saviour ' not only, in his accustomed manner, ^ 6 - 
to Christ but to God ; they ascribe to him a novel interest in j. i, h. 3, 
ecclesiastical organisation ; and the heresy which they Tit. 1 *?.' 3, 
combat is the Gnosticism of the second century, Marcion's iL I0, '"• ' 
famous work The Antitheses being actually, it is alleged, Cf. 1 Tim. 
mentioned by name. Hence it has been concluded that they v 
are not the work of Paul but merely, as Coleridge puts it, 1 
eiriaTokal IlavkoeiSeLs, controversial writings ascribed, after 
the ancient fashion, 2 to the great master. 

This judgment, however, ignores much important evidence. Testimony 
Not the least weighty is the testimony of the Apostolic Apostolic 
Fathers. St. Clement of Rome had seen and conversed with Fatners « 
the Apostles Paul and Peter, 3 and in bis Epistle to the 
Corinthians, written during the last decade of the first 
century, not only are there several passages which seem 
clear echoes of the Pastorals 4 but there is one indubitable 
quotation from the letter to Titus. 5 There are numerous 
echoes also in the Epistles of St. Ignatius. 6 And in the 
Epistle of St. Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostles and especi- 
ally the Apostle John, 7 there are, besides echoes, four distinct 

1 Table Talk, June 15, 1833. 

* The Pythagorean philosophers ascribed their writings to the master, recognising 
him as the source of all their wisdom and claiming no glory for themselves. Cf. 
Iamblich. De Vit. Pyth. 198. 

3 Iren. ill. iii. 2. 

4 Cf. vii with 1 Tim. ii. 3, v. 4 ; xxix with 1 Tim. ii. 8 ; lxi with I Tim. 
i. 17. 

* ii : eroifjLoi els irav epyov a-yadbv. Cf. Tit. iii. I. 

6 Cf. Ad Magn. xi with I Tim. i. 1 ; Ad Polyc. iii with I Tim. i. 3, vi. 3 ; 
Ad Eph. xx with 1 Tim. i. 4 ; Ad Eph. xiv with I Tim. i. 5 ; Ad Rom. ix with 
I Tim. i. 13 ; Ad Trail, vii with 1 Tim. iii. 9, 2 Tim. i. 3 ; Ad Magn. viii 
with 1 Tim. iv. 7, Tit. i. 14, iii. 9 ; Ad Trail, viii with 1 Tim. v. 14 ; Ad Eph. 
ii and Ad Smyrn. x with 2 Tim. i. 10 ; Ad Polyc. vi with 2 Tim. ii. 3, 4 ; 
Ad Smym. iv with 2 Tim. ii. 10. 7 Cf. Iren. III. iii. 4. 



5 88 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

quotations. 1 It is indeed conceivable that the debt might 
be on the other side, and that the Pastorals are Pauline 
imitations and their author quoted from the Apostolic 
Fathers ; but it is unlikely that he should have so flagrantly 
convicted himself in view of the skill wherewith he has 
iv. 21. elsewhere executed his imitation. Thus, in the second letter 
to Timothy Paul is represented as sending a greeting from 
Linus. And who was Linus ? He was the Overseer of the 
Roman Church after the martyrdom of the Apostles Paul 
and Peter. 2 Thenceforth he was a distinguished personage 
in the Church's annals, and his name would hardly have 
been introduced so slightly by a second century imitator 
who was capable of betraying himself by putting on the lips 
of Paul the language of the Apostolic Fathers. 
Thepecu- The decisive question is whether the peculiarities which 
of the the Pastorals exhibit be inconsistent with their Pauline 
congruous au thorship and necessitate their relegation to a later period ; 
with their and a little investigation of the historical data will disclose 
author- their entire congruity with the Apostle's circumstances. It 
smp: may indeed be affirmed without temerity that, had Luke 
been permitted to continue his narrative and exhibit the 
historical background of the Pastorals, their authenticity 
would hardly have been challenged. As it is, the situation is 
indicated merely by suggestions and inferences ; yet even 
so it is sufficiently illuminating. 
t. inci- Not a few of the peculiarities are merely incidental. Thus, 

usages. it has been remarked that in the Pastorals, when the Apostle 
i^Th'il 1 ' s P ea ^ s of slaves and slave-owners, he designates the latter 
9;cf.2 'masters,' whereas he elsewhere styles them 'lords.' But 
Roni. iv. what does this mean ? ' Master ' was the regular term ; and 
4) Eph. vi. wherever in his earlier letters he speaks of slaves and their 
iil. 22, iv.'i. ! lords,' it is always with a didactic purpose. He is incul- 
cating the reciprocal duty of kindness and faithfulness, and 
after the most sacred of examples he enforces it by a word- 
play and affirms that bond and free alike are all slaves — 

1 Cf. iv : &pxh St t&vtuv x»Xe7ru;^ QCkapyvpia with I Tim. vi. 10. iv : ovdfr 
elarjveyKanev ets rbv Koafwv dXX' ou5e e(eveyKeTv n ^x o , asv with I Tim. vi. 7. 
xii : iirkp tt&vtoov rdv ayloiv irpo<rerjx€<r6e • • . inrep (3a<ri\4(dv with I Tim. ii. I. 
ix : tqv vvv rjydirTjaav alwva with 2 Tim. iv. IO. v : nal cvfx^aaCKeiaofjiev and 
2 Tim. ii. 12 are probably independent quotations from a primitive hymn. 

* Cf. Iren. in. iii. 2 ; Eus. Hist. Eccl. in. 2. 



Cf. 1 Pet. 
ii. 18. 



THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM 589 

'slaves of Christ the Lord.' 'Slaves/ he says, 'obey in Cf. Mt. yi. 
everything your human lords, fearing the Lord. Lords, W', xv.' 15' 
accord what is right and equitable to your slaves, knowing 2 °- 
that you also have a Lord in Heaven.' 

Again, the peculiarities of the Pastorals include a little 2. Medici 
group of medical terms: 'gangrene' or 'cancer,' 'cautery,' ^rim a 
'distempered,' 'patient of ill,' 'healthful,' ' healthy/ }7 ; 1 Tim. 
' bring to life ' ; and it seems reasonable to attribute these 2 Tim. H. ' 
to the Apostle's constant intercourse with his ' beloved f 4 ^ 11 lm ' 
physician,' who bore him company throughout those closing yi.3,2Tim, 
years and tended him in his frequent ailings. Nor will this Tit. i 9f 'i 3 ,' 
be deemed far-fetched if it be observed how many — no "xim! vf ; 
fewer than twenty-eight 1 — of the lexical peculiarities which *3- 
distinguish the Pastorals from the other Pauline letters,, 
occur elsewhere in the New Testament only in Luke's writings,' 
his Gospel and the Book of Acts — an evidence of the influence 
which his converse had on the Apostle's language. 

And what of the novel interest which the Pastorals evince 3. intcre : 
in ecclesiastical organisation ? There were two orders in a"t!cai e oT 
the ministry of the primitive Church — the Elders or Over- ganisatio: 
seers, who cared for its spiritual welfare, and the Deacons, 
who administered its temporal affairs ; and, so far as the 
earlier letters indicate, it would appear that they bulked 
little in the Apostle's esteem. It is the congregations that 
engage his concern. Once and only once does he mention Lacking in 
the two orders — when he addresses his Philippian letter 1 t g t e te e r g ri,er 
' to the saints in Christ Jesus, with the Overseers and 
Deacons.' This is his solitary mention of the first order ; 
and as for the second, it appears again incidentally in his 
commendation of Phcebe, ' a deaconess of the Church at R 0m . 
Cenchreae,' who conveyed his great encyclical to Ephesus ; 
and also in his inculcation of uncomplaining and faithful 
employment of the various ' gifts of grace ' : ' if it be deacon- x ii. 7 . 
ship, let us devote ourselves to our deaconship.' It is 
remarkable that he never in the earlier letters uses the term 
' Elder ' or ' Presbyter,' preferring in his solitary mention of 
the office the synonym ' Overseer/ And the reason seems 
to have been that Presbyter was a Jewish title. The 
Christian congregations were organised after the model of 

* 15 infi Tim. ; 9 in 2 Tim. ; 4 in Tit Cf. Append. VII, 



.XVI. I 



590 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the Synagogue ; and as the latter had its Presbyters, so 
they had theirs. It was a venerable and appropriate title ; 
yet by reason of its Jewish associations it lent itself to a 
mischievous perversion, encouraging the Judaist contention 
of the permanence of the ancient order and the abiding 
obligation of the Law. Hence in the stress of the Judaist 
controversy the Apostle naturally mistrusted it, and, though 
it was the official designation, rather employed the alter- 
native ' Overseer/ 

The term And this latter, in its primitive use, was a beautiful name. 

episcopos. jj. wag a pastoral term, and its proper idea appears in Paul's 
address at Miletus to the Ephesian Elders. ' Take heed,' 

Ac. xx. 28. he says, ' to yourselves and all the flock among which the 
Holy Spirit appointed you overseers, that you shepherd 
the Church of the Lord which He won with His own blood,' 
And so the Apostle Peter counsels his fellow Elders : 

1 Pet. v. 2, ' Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, taking the 
oversight of it, not constrainedly but willingly after God's 
way ; and when the Chief Shepherd is manifested, you will 
receive the unfading crown of glory.' This designation of 
our Lord, ' the Chief Shepherd,' occurs only here, and it 
used to be regarded as a Christian coinage after the pattern 
of ' Chief Priest ' ; but it is proved by a recent discovery 
to have been no high title but a homely and familiar designa- 
tion in the Common Greek. Egyptian exploration chanced 
upon a wooden tablet which had hung about the neck of a 
mummy and bore a rude inscription commemorating the 
dead man's name and calling and age : ' Plenis the younger, 
chief shepherd, lived — — years.' 1 The pastures of the 
wilderness were widely scattered, and the sheep were led 
in several flocks where they could find sustenance. Each 
flock was tended by its own shepherd, and there was a chief 
shepherd who had the oversight of them all. Here is the 
apostolic conception of a Presbyter or Elder. He was a 
shepherd, and his congregation was the flock committed to 
his charge. But the Church was composed of many con- 
gregations. There were many flocks, and many shepherds 

1 RXrjvis veu- j repos apxwoi- \ /xevos ifiub- \ <rev iruiv - - -. apxmolfievos is a 
slip for apxiirolMv, proving the illiteracy of the writer. Cf. Deissmann, Light 
from the Ancient East, pp. 97 ff. ; Moulton and Milligan, Vocab. 



THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM 591 

each taking the oversight of his own flock ; and over them all 
there was the Chief Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, * the Het>. xiu. 
Great Shepherd of the Sheep/ the supreme Shepherd and &L 1 . j* 
Overseer, ' the True Shepherd,' the Shepherd in whom the x - "» m- 
idea of shepherdhood is realised. 

It was a beautiful conception, and it is no wonder that Ecciesias- 
Paul should have loved it, and preferred it to the cold official J^km an" 
designation when he was pouring out his heart to his con- urgent con- 

1 1 • 1 • c t • • 1 Cern 1!1 l ' 3e 

verts and thinking not of ecclesiastical organisation but Pastorals. 
only of their doctrinal instruction and evangelical profit. 
It was otherwise, however, when he was addressing not a 
congregation but a Presbyter charged with the oversight of 
a congregation and embarrassed by administrative diffi- 
culties. And such was the occasion of the Pastorals. 
Timothy and Titus were charged, in peculiarly trying cir- 
cumstances, with the business of government and organisa- 
tion, and he deals with their actual and pressing needs. As 
it happened, both had need of counsel in the matter of the 
appointment of office-bearers, and in addressing himself to 
this practical concern he naturally uses the official termino- 
logy. In writing to Timothy he indeed retains the more con- 1 Tim. Hi. 
genial term ' Overseer,' but he presently drops it and J; \ 7j I9> 
employs the official designation ' Elder ' or ' Presbyter ' ; and 
in his letter to Titus he reiterates his counsels and employs Tit. i. 5, 7. 
both terms interchangeably. 

It is true that the Apostle's interest in ecclesiastical its import- 
organisation is peculiar to the Pastorals and has no parallel reco *nS s 
in his earlier letters ; but the explanation lies in the novelty J?y the 
of the situation. If he has never heretofore written thus, the 
reason is simply that occasion has never heretofore arisen. 
And though questions of order and discipline were indeed 
secondary in his esteem, he had never slighted them or 
depreciated their importance. It appears from the Book of 
Acts that, wherever he preached in the course of his travels, 
he never reckoned his work complete until he had organised Cf. Ac. xiv. 
his converts into a congregation and ordained Presbyters 23, 3 
over them ; and thus it was no innovation when he enjoined Tit. i. 5. 
Titus to organise the converts in the island of Crete and 
appoint Presbyters in every city. 

The discussion of those questions of ecclesiastical organi- 



592 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

4 . The sation and administration has furnished no inconsiderable 
heresy. proportion of the novel terms which distinguish the Pastorals ; 
but there was a far graver problem which claimed the 
Apostle's attention, especially in his letters to Timothy ; 
and this has put its impress on both his language and his 
cf. Ac. xx. thought. It was the Gnostic heresy which he had already 
foreseen during his ministry at Ephesus, and which had so 
quicldy developed and overspread the Province of Asia. 
He had dealt with it during his Roman imprisonment in 
his encyclical ' to the Ephesians ' and his letter to Colossse ; 
but his arguments had proved unavailing to arrest its 
malignant growth, and the situation in the Province and 
particularly in the capital was now more serious than ever. 
•Geneaio- He summarily and accurately defines the heresy and its 
Gnostic implicates when he bids Timothy ' charge some not to teach 
eons. strange doctrines or give heed to fables and interminable 
1 Tim. i. 3, genealogies/ The phrase 'interminable genealogies' has 
been much disputed, but it can hardly be anything else than 
a contemptuous designation of the Gnostic theory of a 
succession of emanations from the Divine Pleroma, a hier- 
archy of ceons mediating between God and the world. 1 Noi 
is this the sole reference in the Pastorals to that fantastic 
speculation, which rested on the philosophic postulate of the 
inherent evil of matter and the impossibility of direct contact 
between it and a holy God. It was only through angelic 
mediators that He could have to do with the world whether 
in creation or providence or redemption ; and thus the 
Saviour was reduced to the rank of an (son. It is this theory 
1 Tim. iv. that the Apostle has in view when he affirms that God created 
all kinds of food, and ' everything which God created is 
good,' thus denying the inherent evil of matter ; and again 
ji - 5- when he affirms that there is ' one Mediator between God 

and man, Himself man, Christ Jesus/ thus at once asserting 
the divine dignity of our Lord and sweeping away the 
imagination of a hierarchy of angelic mediators. 
Apocry- And what were the ' fables ' ? The Gnostics followed the 
babies.' allegorical method of interpretation, and just as the Neo- 
platonists had applied it to the Homeric Poems and Philo 

1 Cf. p. 524. Gnostic * genealogising ' is exemplified in the Naasene hymn 
which Hippolytus quotes (v. 5) as summarising all the mysteries of the heresy. 






THK HISTORICAL PROBLEM 593 

to the Jewish Scriptures, so they applied it to the narrative 
of our Lord's earthly life. 1 They saw in the evangelic history 
an allegory of the relation between God and the world, 
portraying the union of spiritual and holy powers with evil 
matter and their final triumph. It was all myth. And, not 
content with allegorising the history, they were ever weaving 
new fables until it was lost in a mass of wild and fantastic 
inventions. This is the origin of the apocryphal Gospels 
which appeared in such rank profusion during the early 
centuries. Such as have survived are indeed later than the 
Apostle's day, but Hippolytus mentions one which was 
current among the Naasenes and set forth their doctrine of 
the soul's rebirth from the earthly to the spiritual 2 — ' the 
Gospel according to the Egyptians,' which survives only in a 
few patristic quotations. 3 

The peril was extreme. It menaced the very life of the The 
Church. There was as yet no written Gospel ; and the f radnfon. 
story of the Lord's earthly life was an oral tradition. The 
catechists who were charged with the business of its con- 
servation and communication, were called didaskaloi or Cf. 1 Tim. 
: Teachers,' 4 and the cognate term didaskalia or ' discipline ' 1 V V ' I I 7 3 ; \ : 
denoted both their office and its material. The Oral Tradi- I*" 1 .! 11, l6; 

Tit. a. 7. 

tion was the Church's most precious possession, and the task cf. 1 Tim. 
of its conservation was always supremely important, demand- vi.V; 2 
ing scrupulous fidelit}' ; but the appearance of those legend- ?""• n ^[ t 0, 
mongers constituted an unprecedented menace and demanded *• 9. " no- 
tenfold vigilance, lest corruptions should steal in. And 
hence the Pastorals abound in importunate warnings and 
novel definitions. They speak of ' the heathful Discipline ' 1 Tim. i. 
in contrast with ' the disciplines of demons,' ' the genuine g°ii. 1!* 
Discipline' in contrast with 'the profane and old-wifish F^jP ivi - 
fables ' of the heretical teachers, c the Discipline which is the vi. 3. 
norm of religion.' And they call the sacred treasure by a 
significant name — ' the deposit,' 'the genuine deposit.' iTim . vi. 
This is a banker's term ; 5 and the idea is that the Evangelic i. 14. 

* Cf. Hippol. V. 3, 4. * Ibid. 5. 

* Cf. Hilgenfeld, Libr. Deperd. Fragm., pp. 42 ff. 

4 Cf. p. 80. Papias (Eus. Hist. Ecd. 111. 39) says that Mark's Gospel was 
his report of the Sidaa-KaXlat of his master Peter. 
6 Cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. xv. 
2 P 



594 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Tradition was a precious trust which amid the corrupting 
influences of the time must be sedulously guarded, preserved 
inviolate, and transmitted unimpaired. ' O Timothy,' 
pleads the Apostle, ' guard the Deposit, shunning the profane 
babblings and incongruities of the " Knowledge " (gnosis) 
so falsely named ' ; and again : ' The genuine Deposit guard 
through the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.' The Oral 
Tradition was ' the genuine Deposit/ and its commixture 
with those base counterfeits, the Gnostic fables, was the 
danger of the hour. And here lies the crowning evidence of 
the apostolic date of the Pastorals. Once the Tradition had 
been committed to writing, the Church possessed an authori- 
tative record of the sayings and doings of her Lord in the 
days of His flesh ; and their solicitude for the inviolate 
conservation of the Tradition demonstrates that the Pastorals 
were written ere the appearance of our Gospels. The earliest 
of these is the Gospel according to St. Mark ; and if, as seems 
certain, it was composed shortly before the fall of Jerusalem 
in the year 70, then the Pastorals were written just before it 
in the extremity of the Church's need. 
ATeacher's The Teachers were not left without aid in the discharge 
cf a a U Thn. °f their difficult and responsible office. It appears that a 
J - *3- Manual had bee*> prepared for their guidance. 1 It furnished 

1 Tim. iii. an ' outline ' of the Evangelic Tradition ; and besides this 
Tim iii ^ seems *° nav ^ contained rules regarding the offices of the 
16, v. Eldership and the Deaconship ; directions for the Christian 
iv. gT'io! 5 ' use of the Old Testament Scriptures ; a variety of evangelical 

Tlt -..V- "■ truths and practical maxims ; and a collection of Christian 

14, m. 4-7. r ' 

1 Tim. iii. hymns. This is the source of those ' faithful words ' which 
li[*^. im ' the Apostle quotes, and of other passages which, though 

1 Tim. i. lacking express reference, are plainly quotations. And it is 
JfioVa 1 * significant that these exhibit striking affinities with the 
Tlra '^\: "" language and thought of Luke. Thus, of the word ' equip ' 
4-8. which occurs in the Pastoral definition of the use of %he Old 

2 Tim. iii. Testament Scriptures — ' that the man of God may be perfect, 

equipped for every good work/ there is only one other 
Ac. xxi. 5. instance in the New Testament, and this is found in the Book 
Tit. ii. ii, of Acts. Again, the word ' appear ' which occurs twice in a 

lengthy quotation in the letter to Titus, occurs elsewhere in 

1 Cf. p. 412. 



THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM 595 

the New Testament only twice — in Luke's Gospel, of the Lk. i. 79. 
appearing of ' the dayspring from on high/ and in his Book Ac. xxvii. 
of Acts, of the appearing of sun or stars to storm-tossed 
mariners. And no less striking is the word ' philanthropy ' Tit. m. 4. 
or ' love of man ' in the same passage. It is a Lucan word, 
and occurs elsewhere only in the Book of Acts. 1 It is, xxviii. a; 
moreover, remarkable how characteristic of the quotations is c ' 
the phrase ' God our Saviour.' It is a phrase of the Teacher's 1 Tim. iv. 
Manual, and though the Apostle has adopted it in several ™ ' 
instances, he never disregards his accustomed differentiation 1 Tim. i. 1, 
between God and Christ the Lord. 2 It seems, however, "* 3 f ; 
that the Manual ignored this distinction, and not only spoke 
of God and Christ equally as ' our Saviour ' but styled Christ Cf. Tit. «i. 
' our Saviour God.' Thus, according to the true rendering, ' 
it speaks of ' our great God and Saviour Christ Jesus ' ; and Tit. a. 13 
it would appear that its outline of the Evangelic Tradition, 
' the healthful words of our Lord Jesus Christ,' was entitled iTim.vi.3. 
' The Discipline of Our Saviour God.' The significant fact Tit. ii. 10. 
here is that the phrase ' God our Saviour ' is found also in 
Luke's hymn, the Magnificat, and nowhere else in the New Lk. i. 47. 
Testament outside of the Pastorals save in the noble bene- 
diction at the close of the Epistle of St. Jude. 

It seems a reasonable inference from all those linguistic Probably 
coincidences between the writings of Luke and the Teacher's ^Lukef 
Manual that the latter may have been his work. And the 
inference is corroborated by the circumstance that the 
Manual contained Christian hymns ; for ' the beloved phy- 
sician ' had the quality of a poet, and it is to him that the 
Church owes three of her finest canticles — the Magnificat, Lk. i. 46; 
the Benedictus, and the Nunc Dimittis. If the Teacher's fjfi g 6 |^ 9; 
Manual was his work, then it was the forerunner of his 
gracious Gospel ; and, like his Gospel, ' the Gospel of the 
sinful,' it was, as the quotations in the Pastorals show, 
pervaded by the spirit of his revered master and beloved 
friend. 

1 Of the 295 linguistic peculiarities in the Pastorals no fewer than 28 are found 
in quotations from the Teacher's Manual. Cf. Append. VII. 
1 Cf. pp. 426, 464. 



' '■}** -' ■■*■ 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 

its record. The Apostle's later ministry extended from the close of his 
first Roman imprisonment in the spring of 62 until his 
re-arrest — a period, as will appear in the sequel, of some five 
and a half years. It is unrecorded by the sacred historian ; 
but it was during its course that the Pastorals were written, 
and from their numerous and significant allusions it is 
possible, with the aid of tradition, to reconstruct its general 
outline with a measure of probability. 

Expulsion When at length after two weary years of captivity he was 

Rome. arraigned before the Emperor, he was acquitted ; but since 
his continued presence in Rome would have provoked his 
Jewish enemies to fresh hostility, he was ordered, in the 
interest of the public peace, to quit the city. And whither 
did he betake himself ? In his letter to his friends at Philippi 

Phil. ii. 24. toward the close of the year 60 he had promised that in the 
event of his release he would pay them a visit ; and quite 
recently, when the issue of his trial was assured, he had 

phm. 22. apprised Philemon of his intention to visit Colossae and bidden 
him prepare for his entertainment. It is reasonable to 
assume that he was not unmindful of these engagements. 
He left Rome, accompanied by his beloved physician 
Luke and Timothy his son in the Faith who had both done 
so much to alleviate the hardship of his long imprisonment, 
and set out for the East. 

Voyage to The sea was now open for navigation, and he took ship for 
Ephesus. This was not his destination, yet it was inevitable 
that he should make a considerable stay in the Asian capital, 
where he had so many associations and interests. Not only 
had he laboured there for two years and a quarter — the 
longest sojourn which he had made in a single city and the 
most eventful period in the whole course of his apostolic 

596 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 597 

career, but there that subtle heresy which had since invaded 
the Province had its chief centre. Its mischievous operations 
had been reported to him during the second year of his 
imprisonment, and he had dealt with it by letter ; and now 
he would be eager to ascertain what effect his arguments 
had produced. 

He quickly perceived that the mischief, so far from Timothy 
abating, had gathered strength. His worst forebodings had f£t™ ied 
been realised. Alike in its doctrinal and in its ethical aspect 
the heresy had attained a larger development, and was 
poisoning the very fountain of the Faith. He would labour 
to counteract the mischief, and he doubtless protracted his 
sojourn to the utmost. But at the longest it was all too 
short ; and when at length he took his departure in pursuance 
of his engagements elsewhere, he left Timothy behind to 
superintend the distracted Church and continue the work 1 Tim. 1 3. 
which he had begun. 4 " 

His promise to the Philippians had been the first made, visit to 
and it must be first fulfilled ; and accordingly, when he left j^la" 
Ephesus, he betook himself to Macedonia. His chief interest 
lay at Philippi, and on their arrival he and Luke, who was 
held in affectionate remembrance for his long and gracious 
ministry there, 1 would receive a warm welcome. But their 
activities would extend much farther. Some six years 
previously the Province had been disturbed by Judaist 
machination, 2 and they would make a tour of the churches 
and confirm them in the Faith. 

From Macedonia in pursuance of the promise to Philemon Overland 
they travelled to Colossi. They might have taken ship coiossL!° 
from Neapolis to Ephesus and journeyed up the valley of the 
Maeander ; but since it appears that, when the Apostle by Cf. 1 Tim. 
and by wrote to Timothy from the valley of the Lycus, he l ' 3 
had never seen the latter since his settlement in the Asian 
capital, it may be inferred that they crossed to Troas 
and, disembarking there, travelled overland by Pergamos, 
Thyatira, Sardes, and Philadelphia. If, as is probable, it 
was now winter-time, early in 63, the difficulty of navigation 
would determine their choice of this route ; and Paul would 
be glad of the opportunity of visiting those cities by the way 

1 Cf. p. 135. * Cf. pp. 26o s 344. 



598 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

and ascertaining how they were affected by the Gnostic 
heresy . 
sojourn in On their arrival at Colossse they would be hospitably 
ofthe h welcomed by Philemon and his family, and they would 
Lycus. m eet at least two old friends, Epaphras, the leader of the 
Colossian Church, and Onesimus, Philemon's slave who had 
absconded to Rome and had heard from the captive Apostle 
of the freedom of the children of God and had returned to 
his master ' no longer as a slave, but something more than a 
slave — a brother beloved.' It was Paul's first and long 
cf. Coi <i. desired visit to the valley of the Lycus, and his interest would 
extend to all its churches. It was natural that he should 
pass from Colossse to its more important neighbour, the 
large and prosperous city of Laodiceia ; and it was there, 
according to tradition, 1 that he wrote the first of the 
Pastorals. 
Timctfeys And what was the occasion ? It is clearly indicated in the 
menTa? se course of the letter. Of all the Apostle's friends perhaps the 
Epbesus. sweetest and gentlest was Timothy. There is none whom 
Cf. i Cor. he more frequently and warmly commends, and none, save 
S; PhiUi! perhaps Luke, who had deserved better of him by personal 
J9*». devotion. Yet his very excellences involved limitations, 
and these seriously incapacitated him for the office which 
he held. He was charged with the oversight of the Ephesian 
Church and the eradication of the heresy which had taken 
root in its midst. It was a difficult task, demanding ex- 
perience, discretion, and courage ; and these qualities 
Timothy lacked. As the very name Presbyter or Elder 
implies, mature age, with the wisdom which it brings, was 
accounted essential in one who was entrusted with the 
oversight of a Christian community ; and Timothy was still 
a young man. Since he was a mere lad living with his pious 
cf. Ac. xvi. mother and grandmother in their home at Lystra when Paul 
enlisted him as his attendant in the summer of 50, he was 
Cf. 1 Tim. now under thirty years of age ; and it would be difficult for 
him to exercise the needful authority among the fathers of 
the Church. A strong and self-reliant personality might 
cf. 1 Cor. have succeeded, but Timothy was constitutionally timid. 

xvi. jo. 

1 Subscript. A : iypafir) airb Aaodacetas, K : 4yp&<f>r) dirb AaoSiKeias ijris ian 
UYjTpoTroXii Qpvyias tt)s HaKariaPTjs, L. 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 599 

He had a gentle and affectionate nature with a woman's 
tenderness and devotion, and in the Apostle's company he a. Phii. w. 
shrank from no hardship and feared no ordeal ; but he could I9 * 23 ' 
not stand alone, and years afterwards Paul still remembered a. 2 Tim. 
how he had wept when they parted at Ephesus. That was L * 
an ill augury for the successful conduct of so difficult a 
charge ; and whatever forebodings it may have awakened in 
Paul's breast were fully realised. It appears that Timothy's 
timidity so mastered him that he was disposed to shrink Cf. 1 Tim. 
into retirement and shirk the public duties of his ministry. r 
Lacking initiative and resolution, he was accessible to 
personal influence and lent a credulous ear to slanderous and 
plausible tongues. It seems that he was thus betrayed into 
painful and disastrous blunders through acting precipitately Cf - * Tirn - 
on groundless charges against Presbyters and, at the same 
time, ordaining unworthy men to the sacred office without 
sufficient investigation of their credentials. It is in keeping Cf. 1 Tim. 
with his character that he was disposed to asceticism ; and v 
he suffered the inevitable penalty not only in physical 
weakness but also, as he had confided to his revered master, cf. 2 Tim. 
in morbid and impure imagination. "' 22, 

The Apostle was doubtless kept informed of the progress Letter to 
of events at Ephesus. Timothy would write him as oppor- imot y ' 
tunity offered ; and it appears that after his arrival in the 
valley of the Lycus he received a communication which 
necessitated his energetic intervention. Timothy's embar- 
rassments had multiplied until his position seemed intoler- cf. 1 Tim- 
able, and he was disposed to resign his charge and quit the l * 3# 
city. And the Apostle immediately wrote him and per- 
emptorily vetoed the proposal, bidding him persevere in his 
ministry and discussing for his guidance the problems which 
confronted him. 



THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY 

The letter opens with the customary address. It is The 
natural that the Apostle's greeting to one so intimately and addiess * 
tenderly associated with him should be peculiarly affectionate, 
all the more that he has stern rebukes to administer ; but it 
seems strange that he should have thought fit to affirm his 



vere 



600 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

apostleship. Did not Timothy know and acknowledge his 
divine calling ? The reason is that the letter was no mere 
private communication. It deals with questions of general 
import ; and, as appears from the final benediction, 'Grace 
be with you all/ it was designed for the instruction and cor- 
rection of the whole Church. Paul had weighty judgments 
to pronounce, and therefore he affirms at the outset his 
apostolic authority. 

1. 1 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus according to the command 
2 of God our Saviour and Christ Jesus our Hope, to Timothy, 
a true child in faith. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the 
Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 

injunction He addresses himself at once to the immediate occasion — 
Timothy's discouragement and his proposal to demit his 
office ; and this pusillanimous step he sternly vetoes and 
reiterates his original mandate. And what was that ? The 
troublers of the Ephesian Church were Gnostic Judaists v 
and their doctrine was a blend of contentious philosophy and 
ascetic legalism ; and Timothy's commission was to counter 
both by keeping the Church true to the Christian message of 
a love which cleanses the heart and renders legal restraint 
imnecessar}'\ 

3 As I exhorted you when I was going to Macedonia, stay on 
at Ephesus, 1 that you may charge some not to teach strange 

4 doctrines or give heed to fables and interminable genealogies, 
Cf. 1 Cor. since these occasion questionings rather than faithful discharge 

5 of the stewardship which God has entrusted to us. And the 
end which the charge should aim at is love springing from a 

6 clean heart and a good conscience and unaffected faith ; and 
it is by missing these that some have swerved into futile 

7 talking. They would be teachers of the Law, though they 
do not understand either their own statements or the subjects 
on which they dogmatise. 

8 Now we know that the Law is beautiful if one use it law- 

9 fully, recognising that law is not enacted for a righteous man 
but for lawless and disorderly persons, impious and sinful, 
unholy and profane, assaulters of their fathers or mothers, 

10 murderers, fornicators, sodomites, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, 

1 The sentence is elliptic : 'as I exhorted you stay on, [so do].' Grotius avoids 
the anacolouthon by taking tva frapayyelXys as imperat. : 'see that you charge' 
(cf. Eph. v. 33). 



ix. 17. 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 601 

and whatever else is opposed to the healthful Discipline, 
ii according to the Gospel of the glory of the Blessed God with 
which I was entrusted:. 

It was a hard task, but by the Lord's grace it could be The 
achieved. Was not Paul himself a conspicuous example of £jj„ st 
the efficacy of grace ? He had been a blasphemer and a sample. 
persecutor ; and if he, ' the foremost of sinners/ had found 
mercy and been so signally used in the Lord's service, what 
was not possible to one whose early years had been so rich 
in promise ? Here was an incentive to Timothy ; and it 
was reinforced by the disastrous issue of the heresy, parti- 
cularly in the case of two of its ringleaders whom for 
their blasphemous aberration the Apostle had recently 
excommunicated. 

12 I am thankful to Him who put power into me, Christ Jesus 
our Lord, because He deemed me faithful and appointed me 

13 to His service, though I was formerly a blasphemer and a 
persecutor and a bully. But mercy was vouchsafed me 
because it was in ignorance that I did it while still a stranger 

14 to the Faith ; and the grace of our Lord multiplied exceedingly, 
bringing that faith and love which come of union with Christ 

15 Jesus. Faithful is the word and worthy of all acceptance 
that ' Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners ' ; and 

16 of these I am foremost. But it was for this reason that mercy 
was vouchsafed me, that in me as the foremost Jesus Christ 
might demonstrate all His long-suffering as a pattern for those 
who would afterwards rest their faith on Him for life eternal. 

17 Now to the King of the Ages, incorruptible, invisible, only 
God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

18 This is the charge which I deposit in your keeping, my child 
Timothy, according to the expectations which your early 
promise inspired, that, begirt with them, you wage the 

19 honourable warfare, keeping hold of faith and a good con- 
science. It is because they have thrust away the latter that 

20 some have suffered shipwreck in relation to the Faith. Among 
these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I ' delivered to 
wSatan ' l that they might be instructed not to blaspheme. 

And now he turns to practical instructions regarding the christian 
life of a Christian community. One inevitable corollary of conducl 
the Gnostic heresy with its postulate of the evil of matter 
and its distinction between * the spiritual ' and ' the carnal ' 

1 Cf. p. 256. 



6o2 LIFE AxND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

was a relaxation of civic and social obligation ; and so he 
inculcates the primal duties of public loyalty and domestic 
piety. 

fl. i I exhort, then, first of all that petitions, prayers, interces- 

2 sions, thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, especially 
on behalf of kings and all in high station, that we may lead a 

3 tranquil and peaceful life in all religion and dignity. This is 
honourable and acceptable in the sight of our Saviour God, 

4 who wishes all men to be saved and reach a full knowledge of 

5 the Truth. For there is one God, one Mediator also between 

6 God and men, Himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself 
Cf. i Jo. v. as a ransom on behalf of all — the testimony which God has 
re 1 '^ . 7 borne at proper seasons; and it was for this that I was 
Tit. i. 3. ' appointed a herald and an Apostle — it is truth that I am 
Cf. Rom. telling, it is no lie — a teacher of Gentiles in faith and truth. 

8 It is my desire, then, that the men should pray in every 
place, uplifting holy hands, without anger and disputation. 

9 And it is my desire also that women should array themselves 
in orderly attire modestly and discreetly, not with plaits and 

10 gold or pearls or costly clothing, 1 but, as becomes women 

11 professing godliness, by the practice of good works. Let 

12 a woman be a peaceable and submissive learner. I do not 
permit a woman to teach or to domineer over a man ; no, 

13 she must be peaceable. For Adam was fashioned first, 

14 then Eve. And it was not Adam that was deceived ; it was 
woman that was out and out deceived and is involved in 

15 transgression. 2 But she will find salvation in her office of 
motherhood — if they continue in faith and love and 
sanctification and discretion withal. 3 

Church Then he turns to the Church and its administration. 

offices. 

* Cf. a wife's epitaph at Heraclia on the Black Sea : r] <pi\av5pos Kal 9&<f>pwv 77 
<pCkb<JO<pos ^rjaacra Koafj.lo)s. 

1 i} yvvr], not 'his wife,' but 'the woman,' involving womankind. Cf. Chrys. : 
ra<ra rj (pixris ev irapafiaaei yiyove 5t' ixeivrji. 

3 The meaning of this difficult passage is clear in the light of the Rabbinical 
doctrine of the status of woman (cf. Taylor, Sayings of the Fathers ', p. 15). She 
was forbidden to learn, much more to teach, the Law. But she was not therefore 
denied salvation. She found it in the performance of her proper offices ; and 
these were to send her children to be taught in the synagogue ; to attend to 
domestic concerns and leave her husband free to study in the schools ; to keep the 
house for him till he returned. In the discharge of these womanly tasks women 
will find salvation, always, adds the Apostle, on the supposition that 'they 
continue in faith and love.' /xelvwaiv plur., since y yvvi] (ver. 14) signifies 
'womankind.' This interpretation rules out various notions which have been 
imported into the passage, as that reKvoyovla means (i) Baptism, 'quod est 
filiorum generatio' (Pelag.), (2) the Virgin Birth (anonym, in Theophyl.). 






THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 603 

iii. 1 Faithful is the word ; 1 ' If one aspires to Overseership, it is cf. ml 
" a beautiful work " that he is desiring.' xxvi - ** 

2 The Overseer, then, must be irreproachable, a faithful 
husband, 2 sober, discreet, orderly, hospitable, apt at teach- 

3 ing, not quarrelsome in his cups or ready with his fists, but 

4 sweetly reasonable, no fighter, nor fond of money, ruling his 
own house honourably, keeping his children in subjection 

5 with all dignity — if one knows not how to rule his own house, 

6 how will he manage God's Church ? — no novice, lest he be 
swollen with windy pride and incur the same condemnation 

7 as the Devil. 3 And he must also have an honourable 
reputation with outsiders, lest he incur reproach and fall 
into the Devil's snare. 

8 Similarly, Deacons must be dignified, not double-tongued, 

9 nor hard drinkers or dirty money-makers ; they must be 
men who hold the mystery of the Faith in a clean conscience. 

10 And let these also first be proved, and then let them take 

11 office if nothing can be laid to their charge. Deaconesses * 
similarly must be dignified, no slanderers, sober, trust- 

12 worthy in everything. Let Deacons be faithful husbands, 

13 ruling honourably their children and their own houses. For 
those who have served honourably in the deaconship are 
winning themselves an honourable station and much boldness 
in preaching the Faith which is in Christ Jesus. 

All these instructions have a personal bearing. It was Timothys 
for Timothy that the Apostle was concerned. His sojourn d ^ cnh 
in the valley of the Lycus w r as drawing to a close, and he dut x- 
hoped that he might ere long revisit Ephesus, and then he 
would deal effectively with the situation. It was impossible, 
however, to forecast the future, and in the meanwhile he 
would have Timothy worthily administer his august office. 
He was charged with the oversight of the Church ; and what 
was the Church ? She was, according to one of the hymns 
in the Teacher's Manual, the repository and guardian of the 
truth, the witness to the high mystery of the Incarnation. 

1 Chrys., followed by W. H., attaches the formula to the preceding sentence 
(ii. 15). For trcaros here D* reads avdpuinvos, 'human' — 'a proverbial expression 
of general application and profane origin ' (Zahn). 

2 Literally 'one woman's man.' There is no reference either to polygamy or 
to remarriage. The Apostle did not prohibit the latter (cf. v. II, 14). 

3 It was through pride that Satan and the rest of the rebel angels fell. Cf. 
Ecclus. x. 13 ; 2 Pet. ii. 4; Jud. 6. 

* yvvaiKas, not wives of deacons or women generally but women holding the 
office of deaconship, deaconesses. This is the patristic view. Cf. Theophyl. : 
ov trepl rwv Tvxovawv ywaiK&v Xtya dX\& irepl twv StaiioviffffQv. 



6o4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

And the situation which had arisen at Ephesus was no 
surprise. It had been long impending ; and the Apostle 
had foreseen it, and had strenuously protested against those 
ascetic tendencies and insisted on the truth that material 
tilings are God's creatures and nothing which God created is 
evil but, according to the Scriptures, ' all very good.' And 
Timothy's business now was the inculcation of that principle 
and the commendation, by precept and example, of the 
Christian ideal of holiness — not the mortification of the 
body but its consecration. 

14 • I am writing you all this though I hope to come to you 

15 ere long. I am writing it in case I should be detained, 
that you may know how you must conduct yourself in the 
House of God, that is, the Church of the Living God, the 

16 pillar and basement of the Truth. And confessedly great 
is the mystery of our religion : He who l 

' Was manifested in the flesh, 
Cf. Lk. Hi. Was pronounced righteous by the Spirit, 

q." Mk t Was seen by angels, 

13! ' Was heralded among the Gentiles, 

Was trusted in the world, 
Was received up in glory.* 

iv. 1 But the Spirit expressly says that in later seasons some 
will fall off from the Faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits 

2 and disciplines of demons, through the masquerading a of 

3 false talkers seared in their own conscience, prohibiting 
marriage and enjoining abstinence from foods which God 
created to be partaken of with thanksgiving by those who 
hold the Faith and have attained full knowledge of the 

Gen. i. 4, o 4 Truth ; because everything which God created is ' good,' 

and there is nothing that should be rejected if it be received 

5 with thanksgiving ; for it is hallowed through the Word of 
God and intercession. 

6 This principle inculcate on the brothers, and you will be 
a genuine minister of Christ Jesus, feeding on the words of 
the Faith and of the genuine Discipline which you have 

7 followed. But their profane and old-winsh fables have 

8 nothing to do with. Train yourself to religion ; for 
physical training is profitable for a little while, but religion 
is profitable for everything, carrying as it does a promise 

9 of life present and future. Faithful is the word and worthy 

1 Reading #s. The variant Qt6s, * God,' originated in a copyist's mistaking OS 
fer OS, the uncial contraction of GEOS. 

8 virbtcpuns, properly 'play-acting. 5 Cf, The Days ef His Fleshy p, ros. 



10, 12, 18, 
ai, 25, 3i 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 605 

10 of all acceptance : ' For this is the end of our toiling and 
wrestling, that we have set our hope on a Living God who 
is the Saviour of all men, especially of such as hold the 
Faith.' 

Timothy was a young man, and it would seem that his Call to 
natural timidity had betrayed him into two fatal blunders. d 
He had allowed himself to be overawed by the sanctimonious Cf. iv. 76- 
pretensions of the ascetics and had acquiesced in their l 
practices instead of taking a resolute stand and boldly 
exhibiting the true ideal. And, further, he tended to seclude 
himself and neglect the public offices of his ministry, par- 
ticularly the public ' reading ' of the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures and the ensuing 'exhortation,' after the manner ofcf.Ac.xin. 
the Jewish Synagogue, and the even more important in- IS> 
stitution of ' discipline ' — the schooling of the Church in the 
Evangelic Tradition. This weak dereliction was a grievous 
disappointment to the Apostle, belying as it did the bright 
promise of Timothy's early years and the high hopes enter- 
tained of him at his ordination. 

11,12 Charge and teach all this. Let no man despise you for 
your youth, but prove a pattern to those who hold the 

13 Faith in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until 
I come give heed to public reading, to exhortation, to 

14 discipline. Be not neglectful of the gift of grace within 

you, which was conferred upon you in the hope which you Cf. i. 18. 
had inspired when the Presbytery laid their hands upon 

15 you. 1 Practise these things, employ yourself in them, that 

16 your progress may be manifest to every one. Take heed to 
yourself and to the Discipline ; persist in your offices, for in 
doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers. 

Timidity was Timothy's snare, and it had involved him The office 
in many embarrassments. Not the least serious was the admon?" 

tion. 
1 Ordination by ' the laying on of hands ' was a primitive practice. Cf. Ac. vi. 

6, viii. 17. The Presbytery was the college of Presbyters in each community; 

and its primitive constitution and procedure are illustrated by Clem. Rom. Ad 

Cor. xlii-xliv. (i) TpevfivTepoi and iirlcrKoiroi were synonymous. Cf. Lightfoot, 

n. 9 on xlii, (2) The Christian office of Presbyter was Jewish in origin. It 

was not founded by Christ : the Apostles instituted it after the example of Moses. 

{3) That it might be permanent, they ordained that successors should be appointed 

as vacancies occurred through death. (4) These appointments were made by the 

Mgkotqi or TTpcffpvrtpoi. with the consent of the whole Church (<TvvevdoK7}<j6.cr)'i 

rijs tKuXyelas irdvys). Cf. the narrative of Polycarp's ordination in Pion. Vit. 

Pfilyc. xxiii. 



6o6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

difficulty which he experienced in the administration of 
personal admonition. It was a delicate duty, and when he 
braced himself to its performance, he was betrayed by sheer 
nervousness into excessive severity. The Apostle's counsel 
is : ' Never reprimand ; remonstrate lovingly. Be like a 
son to older men and women and a brother to the younger/ 

v. i Never reprimand an older man, but exhort him as a father; 
2 and younger men as brothers ; older women as mothers, and 
younger as sisters in all purity. 

The order A gracious characteristic of the Apostolic Church was its 
kindly solicitude for the poor. Almost from the outset of 
cf. Ac. vi. its career provision had been made for the maintenance of 
41 Tja 9 l. forlorn widows ; and ere long, with a wise appreciation, at 
fl7 * once of the humiliation which charity inflicts and of the 

abuses which it inevitably occasions, those unfortunates 
were organised into an order resembling yet distinct from 
that of the Deaconesses. Capable widows were charged 
with a variety of gracious offices, especially the care of orphans 
and the nursing of the sick ; 2 and thus they were serviceable 
to the Church, and their maintenance was no charity but a 
well earned remuneration. It was a beneficent institution, 
but it required vigilant surveillance. It was designed for 
the relief of the really necessitous, not for aged widows who 
had children or grandchildren well able to support them, 
nor for young widows who could earn their own livelihood 
and who, if they were supported in idleness, would turn 
mischievous and wanton. Thus a strict censorship was 
needed ; and here apparently Timothy had proved remiss. 
Scandals had ensued, and to prevent their recurrence the 
Apostle lays down two rules ; first, that no widow should be 
admitted to the order unless she were absolutely desolate ; 
and, second, that none be admitted unless she had attained 
the age of sixty and bore a creditable character. 

*, 4 Honour widows who are really widows ; but if any widow 

has children or grandchildren, let them learn first to act 

religiously by their own house and recompense their fore- 

s bears ; for this is acceptable in the sight of God. One who 

is really a widow and left desolate has set her hope on God 

1 Cf . Lightfoot on Ignat. Ad Smyrn. xiii. 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 607 

and continues at her supplications and her prayers night cf. Lk. H. 
6, 7 and day ; but gaiety in a widow is a living death. And 37> 

8 press these charges, that they may be irreproachable. But 
if any one does not provide for his own, especially his house- 
hold, he has denied the Faith and is worse than one who is a 
stranger to it. 

9 Let no widow be put on the list unless she be sixty years 

10 of age, a faithful wife, with a reputation for ' beautiful works ' cf. Mt. 
— the nurture of children, the entertainment of strangers, xxvi - IO - 
the washing of the saints' feet, 1 the relief of distress, the 

11 pursuit of every good work. But younger widows have 
nothing to do with ; for when they grow wanton against the 

12 Christ, they want to marry, and incur condemnation for 

13 cancelling their initial pledge. And at the same time they 
learn to be idle, gadding from house to house ; and not only 
idle but tattlers and busybodies, talking about things which 

14 should not be talked about. My wish then is that younger 
widows 2 marry, bear children, be mistresses of houses, and 

15 give the adversary no outlet for reviling ; for some have 

16 already swerved after Satan. If any woman who holds 
the Faith is connected with widows, let her relieve them, 
and let the Church not be burdened, so that it may relieve 
the real widows. 

Another difficulty which Timothy had experienced arose Manage- 
from his dealings with the Presbyters. His commission p r e e ^y t f <TS 
was the suppression of the disorders which the heresy had 
occasioned ; and his jurisdiction was extensive, since in so 
large a city there would be several congregations, 8 and 
besides these he had the oversight of all the churches in the 
Province. 4 Each had its Presbyters, charged with the 
offices of administration and instruction ; and it appears that 
they had in many cases been demoralised by the example 
of the heretical teachers. The latter were generally 

1 Two true womanly qualities : (i) Motherliness, in the widest sense. 'One 
who is a mother only to her own children is not a mother ; she is only a woman 
who has borne children ' (George MacDonald). (2) Hospitality, so needful in 
those days when travellers went afoot. When Paul speaks of ' the washing of the 
saints' feet ' (cf. The Days of His Flesh, p. 203), he is recalling his own experience 
in the course of his missionary journeyings, when he had found a kindly welcome 
in many a humble home. 

2 Curss., Chrys., Hier. add xvp a $— a correct gloss. 

* Cf. the multiplicity of synagogues in Damascus (Ac. ix. 2, 20) and Salamis 
(xiii. S). 

4 Cf. ii. 8: h navri ro7ry. Theod. Mops. Argumenttim: ' ut omnem peragrans 
Asiam universam quae illo sunt ecclesias gubernaret.' 



6o8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

cf. vi. 5. mercenary adventurers, trading on their propaganda and 
reaping a rich harvest from the credulity of their dupes ; 
and their abundant emoluments had excited envy and dis- 
content in the breasts of the Presbyters. This unpleasant 
development had embarrassed Timothy, and the Apostle 
counsels him regarding it. He recognises that, in so far as 
the exactions of their sacred functions had impaired their 
livelihood, the Presbyters were entitled to remuneration, 
and there was a double claim on the Church's generosity in 
the case of those who had devoted themselves absolutely to 
her service, especially in the wa}> of preaching and the 
laborious office of ' discipline/ the oral transmission of the 
Evangelic Tradition. That was fair, and it was sanctioned 
by the Scriptures ; yet it was far from justifying the Pres- 
byters in emulating the mercenaty heretics and making a 
trade of religion. A decent livelihood was all that they 
should desire. 

It is plain that this delicate question had occasioned 
much heart-burning. Hard things had been said of the 
Presbyters, and Timothy's handling of the situation had been 
injudicious. He had listened to evil reports, and had 
pronounced censure without strict investigation ; and some- 
times, when scandal had arisen, he was himself to blame. 
The simplicity which was credulous of malicious gossip, 
was credulous also of hypocritical pretension ; and he had 
ordained unworthy men to office. A little prudence would 
have averted these disasters ; for though a man's true 
character may not always be apparent at the first glance, 
it cannot remain hidden. A discerning eye soon penetrates 
the hollow mask, and detects also the modest worth which 
' loves to be unknown and to be made of no reputation.' 

17 Let the Elders who discharge their office honourably be 

counted worthy of double remuneration, especially those who 

Dt. xxv. 4; 18 toil in word and discipline. For the Scripture says : ' Thou 

cf. i Cor. shalt not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain * ; 

19 and 'worthy is the workman of his wage.' 1 Against an 

Cf. Dt. xix. Elder never admit an accusation unless it be supported by two 

20 or three witnesses. As for those who sin, reprove them in the 

sight of all, that the rest may be deterred. 

1 Not a quotation from Scripture but a proverbial maxim, quoted also by oui 
Lord (cf. Lk. x. 7), 



15- 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 609 

2i I solemnly charge you in the sight of God and Christ Jesus 
and the elect angels, that you observe these instructions with- 

22 out prejudice, doing nothing from partiality. Lay ordaining 
hands on no one hastily, and be not a party to other men's 

23 sins. Keep yourself pure. (Be no longer 'a water-drinker,' 
but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your 

24 frequent indispositions. 1 ) There are some men whose sins are 
patent and lead the way to a judgment of them ; but there 

2s are some also whose sins dog their steps. Similarly, ' beautiful 
works ' are patent, and such as are otherwise cannot be con- 
cealed. 

At Ephesus, as in every great city of early days, the in- Relations 
stitution of slavery constituted a problem for the Church. bet - v t een 

J r masters 

Christianity recognised the brotherhood of the children of and slaves. 
men and their equal w r orth in the sight of the Universal 
Father, and in a community where the distinction of bond 
and free was cancelled, it was inevitable that the relation 
of masters and slaves should be increasingly complicated. 
The abolition of slavery was indeed the necessary issue of the 
Gospel ; but at that early date it was still unperceived, and 
the only practical remedy for the unrest was the inculcation 
of that love which would reconcile masters and slaves and 
banish both cruelty and resentment. 

vi. 1 All who bear the yoke of slavery, let them deem their own 
masters worthy of every honour, that the Name of God and 
2 the Discipline may not be calumniated. And those who have 
faithful masters, let them not despise them because they are 
brothers, but be the more devoted because the recipients of 
their good service are faithful and beloved. 

All these were problems incidental to the normal adminis- Deminci^ 
tration of the Church, and besides them there were troubles |j™ tics he 
from without. Timothy was confronted with that vexatious 
heresy, and the Apostle concludes his counsels with a 
denunciation of its emissaries and their evil ways — their 
departure from the Evangelic Tradition, their conceit, their 
ignorance, their contentiousness, and, above all, their 
mercenary greed. It proves how scandalous this last was 

1 A marginals (cf. p. 245), inserted in the margin after the letter was written 
as a needful corrective of Timothy's disposition to asceticism. vSpoTrordv was a 
good Greek word, but it carried a suggestion of contempt. In the Comic Poets 

v^poworyjs was 'a thin-blooded fellow.' 

2Q 



6to LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

and how perilous its contagion that, when he read over the 
letter, he was moved to enforce his warnings by entering on 
the margin an additional exhortation. 

3 All this teach and exhort. If any one teach otherwise and 
do not accede to healthful words — those of our Lord Jesus 

4 Christ — and the Discipline which is the norm of religion, he is 
swollen with windy pride, knowing nothing but distempered 
about questionings and verbal disputations which originate 

5 envy, strife, calumnies, evil suspicions, persistent wranglings 
on the part of men corrupted in their mind and bereft of the 

6 Truth. They think that religion is a source of profit. And 
religion is a great source of profit when contentment goes with 

7 it. For we carried nothing into the world, nor 1 can we carry 

8 anything out of it ; but if we have food and covering, these will 

9 suffice us. Those who would fain be rich fall into temptation 
and a snare and many desires which are witless and mischievous, 

io since they sink men in wreck and ruin. For the love of money 
is the root of all evils, and some in their ambition for it have 
been led astray from the Faith and pierced themselves with 
many a pang. 
ii But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteous- 
i2ness, religion, faith, love, endurance, meekness. Face the 
Faith's honourable contest ; win the Eternal Life for which you 
were called and made the honourable confession in the sight of 

13 many witnesses. My charge in the sight of God who brings 
all things to life, 2 and Christ Jesus who at the bar of Pontius 

14 Pilate witnessed the honourable confession, is that you keep 
the commandment without spot or reproach until the Appearing 

15 of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and this will He display at His own 
seasons who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of the 

16 kingly and the Lord of the lordly, who alone possesses im- 
mortality, inhabiting light unapproachable, and whom no man 
ever saw or can see ; to whom be honour and might eternal. 
Amen. 

17 (Those who are rich in the present age charge not to be 
uplifted with conceit nor have their hope based on the visionari- 
ness of riches, but to repose it on God who affords us everything 

18 richly for our enjoyment, to be beneficent, to be rich in 
19 ' beautiful works/ to be open-handed and liberal, storing up 

for themselves a sound foundation against the future, that 
they may win the real life.) 3 

1 Omitting 6V1, which is probably 'an accidental repetition of the last two letters 
of Koa/xou, ON being read as 0TI ' (W. H. Append.). 

8 fwoyovciv, 'bring to birth alive' (cf. Ex. i. 17, 18, 22), a medical term (cf. 
Hobart, Med. Lang, of St. Luke, p. 155) ; elsewhere in N. T. only in Lk. xvii 
33, Ac. vii. 19. Cf. p. 589. 

* Another marginale, enforcing vers. 9, 10. 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 6n 

And now after his wont he takes the pen from his amanu- The 
ensis and writes the closing sentence with his own hand sign? d * 
The Evangelic Tradition was the Church's most precious manu * 1 
possession, and his last word is an earnest appeal to Timothy 
to preserve it inviolate and guard it from heretical corruption. 

20 O Timothy, guard the deposit, shunning the profane 

BABBLINGS AND INCONGRUITIES 1 OF THE ' KNOWLEDGE ' SO 
21 FALSELY NAMED. It IS BY PROFESSING THIS THAT SOME HAVE 
MISSED THE MARK IN RELATION TO THE FAITH. GRACE BE WITH 
YOU ALL. 

It was probably early in the year 63 that the Apostle had Progress to 
arrived at Colossae, and his sojourn in the valley of the Antioch. 
Lycus would continue for several months. Since it would 
have been perilous for him to linger in that malarial region 
during the heat of midsummer, it may be inferred that he 
took his departure by June at the latest ; and it is hardly 
doubtful that he would travel eastward into the adjacent 
Province of Galatia and visit his Churches at Pisidian 
Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Thence he would 
proceed to Syrian Antioch, the metropolis of Gentile 
Christendom and the constant base of his missionary opera- 
tions ; and he would arrive there in autumn, crossing the 
Taurus ere the passage was closed by the winter snows. 
This is indeed mere probability, but it finds a measure of 
confirmation in the circumstance that in the sequel he 
appears in the company of Titus, that young Greek who had 
attended him and Barnabas from Antioch on their elee- 
mosynary mission to Jerusalem in the summer of 45, 2 and 
who had subsequently acquitted himself so creditably in the 
difficult negotiations with the recalcitrant Church of Corinth. 3 
Antioch was the home of Titus, and it is likely that he w r ould 
return thither when his work in the West was done, and 
labour there during the Apostle's long captivity. It is 
remarkable that his name is never mentioned in the Book 

1 &vtl94<?€is, supposed by critics who regard the Pastorals as Pauline fictions of 
2 nd c, to be an express reference to Marcion's work 'The Antithesis.' But 
ivridecris was a familiar term both in Classical and in Common Greek (cf. Moulton 
and Milligan, Vocab.). Perhaps the Apostle was thinking of the Gnostic 'anti- 
theses ' — God and the world, spirit and matter, light and darkness, etc. 

» Cf. pp. 73 f. » Cf. pp. 340 f., 345. 



612 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

of Acts, since, as it happened, he and Luke had hardly ever 

come into contact. He is known only from incidental 

allusions in Paul's letters; but these sufficiently testify to 

his rare qualities, and doubtless had the historian been 

permitted to complete his work, his later narrative would 

have rescued Titus from the obscurity which unfortunately 

invests him. 

Mission to The way was now open for the fulfilment of the Apostle's 

West;." long cherished design of continuing the westward progress 

a. Rom. f the Gospel and carrying it as far as Spain ; and he would 

set out on this momentous mission in the spring of 64, as 

soon as navigation was resumed on Feb. 8. He did not go 

alone. Luke and Titus accompanied him, and probably 

others. The ship would naturally call at the port of Ephesus, 

Cf. 1 Tim. and he would land there and, in fulfilment of his promise, 

13. I4 ' V ' interview Timothy. With so large an enterprise in view 

he would make no long stay. The next station on the 

route was Corinth, and there in ordinary circumstances he 

w r ould have continued his voyage to Italy, but that country 

w T as now closed against him. He had been banished from 

Rome on his acquittal in the spring of 62 ; and, moreover, 

it was probably at this very juncture that the world was 

startled by that appalling calamity, the conflagration of the 

Imperial capital. It broke out on July 19, 64, and raged 

for six days ; 1 and since the blame of it was fastened on 

the Christians, it would have been certain death had the 

Apostle and his company appeared in the vicinity while the 

popular fury was at its height. And so it appears that he 

avoided Italy and travelled overland through Epirus and 

u. 2 Cor. Dalmatia. These were new countries to him, but he had 

x. is, 16. | on g c h er j s h e d the hope of visiting them. And already he 

xv! 19. was no stranger to their people ; for some seven years 

previously the Gospel had been diffused from Macedonia 

and Achaia to Illyricum, and along the route he would 

encounter Christian communities where his name was revered. 

On reaching the head of the Adriatic he would enter Venetia 

at Aquileia ; and, journeying westward, he would traverse 

Gallia Cisalpina until he reached the port of Massilia 

(Marseilles), and thence he would take ship to Spain. 

1 Cf. Lewin, Fast. Sac, 1955 f. 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 613 

All this is merely inferential, but it appears less pre- Ministry in 
carious when it is remembered that Christianity was planted spafn and 
not only in Spain but in Gaul at a very early date, and St. 
Irenaeus appeals to the churches in these countries as witnesses 
to the Apostolic Tradition. 1 The story of the Apostle's 
fortunes on those fresh fields would have made a stirring 
chapter in his biography ; and here one poignantly realises 
how grievous is the loss entailed by the cutting short of 
Luke's narrative. Regarding his ministry in Gaul there is 
indeed one uncertain suggestion. It seems that ' Galatia ' 
was an alternative form of ' Gallia ' ; 2 and if there be truth 
in the ancient opinion that, when the Apostle in the course 
of his last journey to Rome ' sent Crescens to Galatia,' it 2 Tim. w 
was not to the Asiatic Province that he sent him but to IO * 
Gallia Cisalpina, then it appears that his ministry there had 
borne abiding fruit. As for his work in Spain, however, it 
is unillumined even by so doubtful a ray. The one certainty 
is that he would have no difficulty in obtaining a hearing 
for his message, since there were considerable Jewish colonies 
in Spain, especially along the eastern sea-board ; 3 and in 
each city he would, according to his wont, visit, the synagogue 
and discourse to the congregation. 

It was probably in the spring of 66 that he once more The isiaad 
turned his face eastward. Whatever his success in Spain, of Crete ' 
he had at least accomplished his purpose of carrying the 
Gospel to ' the Boundary of the West ' ; and he now heard 
the call of other lands where he' had never yet preached. 
One was the island of Crete, which had doubtless lain on his — 
heart ever since in the autumn of 59 he had surveyed it from 
the deck of the ship which was conveying him to Rome. 
It was a large island, measuring, according to Pliny, 4 270 
Roman miles in length, 50 at the broadest, and 589 in 
circumference. It was an irregular ridge of mountains, 
forming three groups — Mount Leuke to the west, Mount Ida 
in the middle, and Mount Dicte to the east. The coastline 
was broken by sharp promontories and deep bays, and the 

1 Iren. I. iii. 

1 Cf. Lightfoot, Gal. pp. 3, 31 ; Moulton and Milligan, Voc. In 2 Tim. Iv, I© 
Tisch., following NC and other authorities, reads TaWlav. 

* Cf. SchUrer, II. ii. p. 242. * Nat. Hist. IV. 20. 



614 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Character 
of the 
people. 



Cretan 
Jews, 



Cf. Ac. ii. 
ii. 



Cf. Tit. i. 
13-16; Hi. 
9- 1 1. 



Paul's 
ministry in 
Crete. 



surface was a tumble of hills and woodlands and fertile 
valleys. 1 It was closely populated, and contained, according 
to Pliny, a hundred famous cities. The chief of these were 
Gortyna, betwixt Mount Ida and the southern coast, and 
Cnossus toward the north. Crete figures largely in ancient 
mythology. There was the storied Labyrinth, the creation 
of Daedalus and the prison of the Minotaur ; and at Mount 
Ida the infant Zeus had been nurtured, and his fabled tomb 
was the chief of the island's sacred shrines. 

The people bore an evil reputation. Their falsehood was 
proverbial. ' Cretising ' was synonymous with ' lying,' and 
' playing the Cretan with a Cretan ' meant ' out-tricking a 
trickster.' 2 They were avaricious and unscrupulous ; these 
vices, it was said, were indigenous, and the Cretans were 
the only people who counted them no disgrace. 3 The wine 
of Crete was famous, 4 and drunkenness prevailed. Even the 
women were addicted to it. It appears, moreover, from the 
record of history that the Cretans were a turbulent and 
lawless race. It was their complicity with the pirates, those 
pests of the Mediterranean, that provoked the war which 
issued in their subjugation to Rome by Metellus in the year 
67 B.C. ; and in later days they were still prone to sedition 
and rebellion. 

There were many Jews in Crete, especially in the cities ; 6 
and though not a few of them, like the family of the Cretan 
wife of the Jewish historian Josephus, 6 occupied the first 
rank in wealth and influence, they were frequently ring- 
leaders of disorder. They remained true to their ancestral 
faith, winning proselytes and making pilgrimages to the Holy 
City at the seasons of the great Feasts ; nor did their in- 
sularity exclude them from contemporary movements in 
the intellectual and religious domain. It is an evidence of 
this that the Gnostic ideas of the Province of Asia had been 
wafted across the iEgean and taken root in the island. 

Crete had thus sore need of the Gospel. And it was 

1 Cf. Strabo, 475 : ?<m &6pwT] ical Satreta $ vijffos, #%« 5' afikuvas eiicdpwovs. 

* Cf. Plut. ASm, Paul. 25. • Polyb. VI. 46. 
4 Juv. xiv. 270 f. 

* 1 Mace. xv. 23 ; Phil. Leg. ad Caium, 36 ; Jos. Ant. xvii. xii. I ; De Bett. 
Jud. II. vii. 1. Cf. p. 4. B Jos. Vit. 76. 



h <£ 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 615 

natural that the Apostle should turn thither. He hacl 
already planted the Faith in the countries on the northern 
shores of the Mediterranean basin and in the islands of 
Cyprus and Melita ; and now, when he was warned by the 
decay of his physical powers and the increasing menace of 
his adversaries that the end was approaching, it would seem 
that the evangelisation of Crete, the one spot in the long 
circuit from Syria to Spain still untouched, would be the 
fitting crown of his life's labour. Of his mission in the island 
there is no record ; but he would certainly follow his wonted 
procedure. He would visit the various cities, beginning 
perhaps with the capital Gortyna, and pass from place to 
place until he had traversed the whole island. It is plain from 
his references that he experienced to the full the obnoxious cf. Tit. L 
idiosyncrasies of the Cretan character, since after his I2> I3> 
departure from their midst he attested the justice of the 
people's odious reputation. Nevertheless his work was in 
nowise unsuccessful. He won many converts and founded cf. ver. 5. 
numerous churches. 

He took his departure in the autumn, leaving Titus to His 
continue and consolidate the work, particularly by the ^tu^t 
ordination of Presbyters in every city where a church had 12. 
been formed. Much indeed had still to be done, and it would 
have been well for Crete could he have remained ; but it 
seems that he was exhausted by the protracted strain and 
designed to spend the approaching winter in some peaceful 
retreat. There was constant and easy communication 
between Crete and Cenchrese, the port of Corinth, and he 
would naturally voyage thither. He would find a cordial 
welcome among his numerous friends in the Achaian capital ; 
and one of these was Apollos, who had doubtless fulfilled his 
intention of returning thither and resuming the powerful cf. 1 Cor. 
ministry which had been interrupted by the unhappy con- XVK I2, 
troversy in the Corinthian Church. 1 

The Apostle's ultimate destination was uncertain when he winter re- 
left Crete, but he presently reached a decision and fixed ^copoifs! 
upon Nicopolis for his winter residence. It happens that 
there were no fewer than eight places which bore this name, 
and it must remain questionable which of these is here 

1 Cf. pp. 240 f., 323. 



616 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

intended. The most famous is the city of Epirus which 
Augustus had founded and named Nicopolis, * the City of 
Victory,' in commemoration of his triumph over Antony 
and Cleopatra in the year 31 B.C. Two others were in 
Thrace — one in the west on the river Nessus, and the second 
on the Haemus in the east. A fourth was in Armenia. A 
fifth w r as in Bithynia on the Bosporus. 1 A sixth was in 
Cilicia near the ridge of Amanus on the border of Cilicia and 
Syria. 2 A seventh was in Judaea — the town whose Jewish 
name was Emmaus. And there was still another in Egypt 
near Alexandria. 3 St. Chrysostom took the Apostle to 
mean Nicopolis in Thrace, presumably the town on the 
Nessus ; but St. Jerome naturally thought of the famous 
city in Epirus, and this is the prevailing opinion. The 
probabilities, however, point rather to the Cilician Nicopolis. 
It was situated about equidistant from Tarsus, the Apostle's 
birthplace, whither his heart would instinctively turn in his 
old age, and Syrian Antioch, the headquarters of his ministry. 
It would recommend the Cilician town for his winter's 
residence that it was within easy reach of both. And the 
very indefiniteness of his reference is perhaps determinant. 
Titus belonged to Syrian Antioch, and when the Apostle 
intimated to him his intention of ' wintering at Nicopolis,' 
he would immediately think of the familiar town in his own 
Province of Syria-Cilicia. Any other Nicopolis would have 
required definition. 
Letter to On deciding where he would spend the winter Paul wrote 
Crlte. at to Titus ; and the purpose of the communication was not 
merely to acquaint the latter with his movements but to 
counsel him on the fitting discharge of his heavy responsi- 
bilities. His position was difficult, and the Apostle, besides 
writing much helpful advice, entrusted the conveyance oi 
the letter to two eminent Corinthians who would administer 
Cf. Tit. Hi. encouragement and inspiration. These were the brilliant 
I3 * Apollos and a converted Rabbi named Zenas. 4 

1 Plin. Nat. Hist. v. 43. * Strabo, 676. • Strabo, 795, 800. 

4 According to subscript, in Syr sch , Theod. Mops. According to Cop. Vers 
the bearer of the letter was Artemas (ver. 12). 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 617 



THE LETTER TO TITUS 

The address has a double purpose. It affirms Paul's The 
apostleship, his title to speak with authority ; and it defines address - 
the Gospel message in view of the Cretan situation. The 
Christians there would be largely Jewish converts, and the 
adversaries of the Faith were chiefly Jews more or less 
imbued with the Asian Gnosticism. Accordingly the Apostle 
emphasises the historic antecedents of Christianity. It was 
no novel institution. It was based on the ancient Promise 
which Israel had trusted from generation to generation and 
which, he observes with a reference to the Cretan character, cf. i. ia. 
was wortrry of trust since it had been given by ' the God 
who never lies.' That Promise had been defined ever more 
clearly by successive revelations, and the Gospel was its 
final fulfilment. 

i. 1 Paul, a slave of God and an Apostle of Jesus Christ for the 
establishment of the faith of God's chosen and the advance- 
ment of the knowledge of the truth which is the norm of 

2 religion and rests on the hope of life eternal which the God 

3 who never lies promised ere the ages began, while at fitting 
seasons He manifested His Word in the message which was 
entrusted to me according to the commandment of our 

4 Saviour God : to Titus, a true child after a common faith. 
Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our 
Saviour. 

The business of Titus was the consolidation of the Apostle's Appoint- 
ment of 



work in Crete. Converts had been won, but they would p^; 



Dvters 



inevitably relapse unless provision were made for the con- and tbeir 
nrmation of their Christian profession and their instruction in tions. 
the Faith. And therefore it was necessarv that the several 
congregations should be effectively organised. This was the 
business which had been entrusted to Titus ; and his prin- 
cipal task was the ordination of Presbyters in each com- 
munity. The Apostle reiterates the qualifications for the 
sacred office. The work of a Presbyter was mainly twofold : 
on the one hand, the communication and commendation of 
the Evangelic Discipline to the congregation ; and, on the 
other, the refutation of the objections of unbelievers. And 
his qualifications were an irreproachable character and 



6i8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

scrupulous adherence to the Tradition as he had himself 
been instructed in it. 

5 It was for this reason that I left you in Crete — that you might 
put to rights what had still to be done, and appoint as Pres- 
byters in every city, according to the direction I gave you, 

6 men who have nothing laid to their charge, faithful husbands, 
with believing children not accused of profligacy or unruly in 

7 their behaviour. For an Overseer must, as a steward of God, 
be one who has nothing laid to his charge, not churlish, 1 or 
wrathful, or quarrelsome in his cups, or ready with his fists, 

8 or a dirty money-maker, but hospitable, a lover of the good, 

9 discreet, righteous, pious, self-controlled, maintaining the faith- 
ful Word as it was taught him, that he may be powerful 
both at exhorting on the healthful Discipline and at refuting 
our opponents. 

Local It was specially needful that Titus should insist on these 

difficulties, qualifications in view of local circumstances — the moral 

laxity of the Cretan character and the activity of the Gnostic 

Judaists, especially their ascetic propaganda which, by its 

false ideal of holiness, issued in moral disaster. 

io For there are many disorderly persons, futile talkers and 

Cf. Gal. ii. ii deceivers, especially the champions of circumcision ; and their 

I2 - mouths you must shut, since they upset whole households by 

teaching what they should not for the sake of dirty money- 

12 making. Said one of them, a prophet of their own : 2 

' Cretans are ever liars, ill animals, indolent gluttons.' 

13 This testimony is true. Wherefore refute them with sharp 

14 severity, that they may be healthful in the Faith and give no 
heed to Jewish fables and precepts of men who turn their backs 

15 upon the Truth. Everything is clean to the clean ; but to the 
defiled and faithless nothing is clean ; no, their very mind and 

16 conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by 
their works they deny Him, being abominable and disobedient 
and for every good work worthless. 

Advice in The remedy lay in loyalty to the Evangelic Tradition, ' the 

wUhthese. healthful Discipline ' ; and the Apostle indicates what 

maimer of exhortations Titus must address to the various 

classes of his hearers — the older men and women and the 

younger men. It is significant that, evidently for prudential 

1 avBcLSys. Cf. Theophr. Char, in (Jebb) : ' The churlish person is the sort 
who, when asked "Where is so-and-so?" says "Don't bother me," and when 
addressed does not answer.' 

* Epimenides. Cf. pp. II, 24. 



THE APOSTLE'S LATER MINISTRY 619 

reasons, he does not require Titus to address the younger 
women directly but relegates the task of schooling them to the 
older women. Titus was still comparatively young, and 
while it was expedient that he should refrain from personal 
dealing with the younger women, he was thus fitted for 
instructing the younger men ; and the Apostle reminds him 
that his most potent influence resided in the example of 
his personal character. In Crete as elsewhere Christianity 
was confronted by the institution of slavery and the peculiar 
difficulties which it involved. Apparently the Cretan slaves 
were infected by the prevailing spirit, and the Apostle bids 
Titus exhort those converts who belonged to this unhappy 
order to eschew turbulence, insolence, and dishonesty, and by 
a display of kindly fidelity ' adorn the Discipline of their 
Saviour God,' exhibiting the grace of Christianity by re- 
producing in their own persons the life of the Incarnate Lord. 

ii. 1 But as for you, speak things which befit the healthful 
a Discipline : that old men be sober, dignified, discreet, 

3 healthful by their faith, their love, their endurance ; old 
women likewise reverend in demeanour, no slanderers or 

4 slaves to wine, exemplars of honour, schooling the young 

5 women to love their husbands and their children, to be 
discreet, pure, good housewives, kindly, submissive to their 
own husbands, that the Word of God may not be calumni- 

6, 7 ated. The younger men likewise exhort to be discreet in 
every respect, presenting in your own person a pattern of 
' beautiful works ' — exactitude x in the Discipline, dignity, 

8 healthy speech which no one can condemn, that the opponent 
may be discomfited through having nothing bad to say 

9 about us. Bid slaves be submissive to their own masters 
in all circumstances and give satisfaction, never speaking 

10 back, never pilfering but displaying all kindly fidelity, that 
they may adorn the Discipline of our Saviour God in all 
circumstances. 

All this he enforces by an apt and beautiful quotation Quotation 
from the Teacher's Manual, and charges Titus, as his message Teachers 
is so august, to proclaim it with due authority. ' Let no one Manual - 
despise you.' If he remembered the injunction to preserve 

1 atpdopia, ' incorruption,' scrupulous repetition of the Tradition in its proper 
purity. The adject, occurs in a papyrus contract with a wet-nurse binding her to 
feed the child ' with her own milk, pure and uncorrupt ' {Kadapy Kal i.<pdbpifi\ 
Cf. Moulton and Milligan, Vocab. 



620 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Ps. cxxx. 8, 
Ez. 

xxxvii. 23 ; 
Dt. xiv. 2. 



Conten- 
tiousness 
and its 
remedy. 



the Tradition inviolate and bear himself with becoming 
dignity, no one would despise either his message or himself , 

ii For ' the grace of God appeared fraught with salvation 

12 for all men, instructing us to deny irreligion and worldly 
desires and live discreetly and righteously and religiously 

13 m the present age, awaiting the Blessed Hope, even the 
appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Christ 

ix Jesus, 1 who gave Himself for us that He might " ransom 
us from all lawlessness " and " purify for Himself a people 
peculiarly His own," eager for " beautiful works." ' 

15 Speak all this, and exhort and rebuke with all imperative- 
ness. Let no one despise you. 

Turbulence was not peculiar to the slaves. It was a 
Cretan characteristic, and the Apostle enjoins Titus to 
inculcate respect for law and government and a neighbourly 
and peaceable disposition. Nor must he judge the Cretans 
too severely. The unlovely qualities so conspicuous in them 
were, in greater or less degree, universal in unregenerate 
humanity. It is, he says, quoting once more from the 
Teacher's Manual, the mercy of God that has saved us ; 
and what the rich grace of His Holy Spirit has done for us 
it will do for them. That was the message which Titus must 
proclaim. And he must hold aloof from the foolish specula- 
tions and legalistic contentions of the adversaries of the 
Faith. Disputation is an unprofitable employment, availing 
nothing and issuing in worse hostility ; and where an 
encounter was inevitable, he should simply state the truth 
and, if it were rejected, decline further controversy. 

iU. 1 Remind them to be submissive to principalities and 
authorities, to obey magistrates, to be ready for every good 

2 work, to calumniate no one, to be peaceable, sweetly reason- 

3 able, displaying all meekness toward all men. For we too 
were once witless, disobedient, deceived, slaves of various 
desires and indulgences, leading our lives in malice and envy, 

4 detestable and hating each other. But ' when the kindness 

5 and philanthropy of our Saviour God appeared, not on the 

1 It appears from numerous instances in the papyri that this was a regular 
formula among Greek Christians. It was indeed alien from the Pauline manner 
thus deoXoyav rbv Xpiffrdv (cf. p. 426) ; but linguistic evidence proves this passage 
a quotation from the Lucan Manual (cf. pp. 594 f.), and it is therefore unneces- 
sary to Paulinise the formula by rendering it ungrammatically ' the great God and 
our Saviour Christ Jesus. ' Cf . Moulton, Prol. p. 84. 



THE APOSTLES LATER MINISTRY 621 

score of works — works in the way of righteousness — which we 

did, but according to His mercy He saved us through the 

6laver of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit whom 

He poured forth upon us richly through Jesus Christ our 

7 Saviour, that, being accounted righteous by His grace, we 
might enter on our heritage according to the hope of life 
eternal.' 

8 Faithful is the word, and on all this I would have you 
insist, that those who have put their faith in God may be 
careful to practise ' beautiful works.' These are beautiful Cf. Mt. 

9 and profitable for men. But foolish questions and genea- XXVI IO ' 
logics and strife and legalistic quarrels avoid, for they are 

10 profitless and futile. With a factious person after admon- 
uishing him once or twice have nothing to do, knowing that 
a man of this sort is perverted ; he is a sinner and is self- 
condemned. 

And now the letter concludes with some personal matters. Personal 
The Apostle was retiring to Nicopolis, but he would only pass n 
the winter there. Then he would set forth on a fresh mission 
and would require the assistance of Titus. In due time he 
would send a messenger to summon him, and this would be 
either Artemas or Tychicus. The latter was an old friend. 
He was an Ephesian, 1 and when he last appeared, it was as Eph. vi. ai; 
the bearer of the encyclical to the Churches of Asia and ° lv ' 7 * 
the letter to Colossae. As for Artemas, this is his first and 
only mention ; and it may be that he was a young Corinthian 
or perhaps a Cretan convert who was accompanying the 
Apostle in the capacity of his attendant. 2 Zenas and Apollos 
were the bearers of the letter to Crete. They would make 
no long stay in the island, and Paul pointedly enjoins Titus 
to see to it that, when they took their departure, they were 
adequately provided for the homeward journey. It lay 
with the Cretan Church to furnish them ; and the Apostle, 
aware of the Cretan avarice, apprehended neglect. And, in 
case the plea of poverty might be offered, he takes occasion 
to bid Titus inculcate on the Cretan Christians the duty of 
industry, that they might earn an honest livelihood and dis- 
charge their just liabilities. 

xa When I send Artemas to you or Tychicus, do your best to 
join me at Nicopolis ; for there I have decided to winter, 

1 Cf. p. 371. Cf. p. 79- 



622 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



The sign- 
manual. 



13 And equip Zenas, the Teacher of the Law, 1 and Apollos for their 

14 journey as best you may, that they may lack nothing. And let 
our people also learn to practise honourable crafts for their 
necessary needs, that they may not live barren lives. 

15 All my companions greet you. Greet our friends in 
faith. Grace be with you all. 



wintering It was the winter of 66-67 that Paul spent at Nicopolis ; 
Nicopoiis. and while it was a season of much needed repose, it would 
Tit. ni. 12. be no season of inactivity. ' Wintering ' was a military 
phrase ; and, like a wise general, he would ' prepare in winter- 
quarters for the summer campaign.' 2 His residence was in 
the very centre of the Province of Syria-Cilicia where, 
betwixt his conversion and his call to the Apostleship of the 
Gentiles, he had laboured for some nine years. He was thus 
in the midst of friends ; and while he refrained from travel, 
he would receive numerous visitors and hold frequent com- 
munication, especially with Tarsus and Syrian Antioch. 
cf. 2 Tim. He would, moreover, be daily engaged in the study of the 
1V ' I3 ' ancient Scriptures, his constant companions. 



1 voiuk6s } a Scribe, a teacher of the Jewish Law. 
avrQp vofxixbi = Mk. xii. 28 : eh tuv ypa/ifiariuv, 
f Cf. Epict I. ii. 32. 



Cf. Mt. xxil 35 : eft # 



THE SECOND IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 

The advent of spring summoned him to resume his labour, a mission 
and he would doubtless repair to Syrian Antioch and thence westward - 
set forth, with the Church's benediction, on a fresh mission. 
He did not go alone. The faithful Luke, his ' beloved 
physician/ had never left his side ; Tychicus the Ephesian Tit. m. 12. 
too had accompanied him to Nicopolis, and Titus had been cf. 2 Tim. 
summoned thither from Crete. These three, at all events, r 
bore him company. 

It appears that they betook themselves to the Province of The Pro- 
Asia, where the Gnostic heresy was still distracting the A ^; eof 
churches. Paul would surely visit Ephesus, probably taking 
ship thither from Seleuceia ; and it seems that his retinue 
was augmented at Ephesus by the accession of at least two 
old friends — Erastus, who during his ministry in the Asian 
capital had shared with Timothy the office of his attendant, Ac. xix. 22. 
and his fellow-townsman Trophimus. On his departure he 
visited other cities in the Province, among them Miletus, Cf. 2 Tim. 
where Trophimus fell sick and had to be left behind. 

The dream of his heart during the years of his missionarv Resolution 

" to vcntMrc 

labours had been to visit the Imperial capital and win it for back to 
Christ ; and it had been realised after a fashion when he Rome 
was taken thither in bonds and pined in captivity for two 
long years. On his release he was banished from Rome ; 
but he had clung to the hope of returning thither, and it 
seems that now, after the lapse of five years, he had resolved 
to venture back. It was a momentous enterprise, and so 
powerfully did it appeal to his friends in Asia that some of 
them were ambitious to share it and joined his train. Fore- Cf. 2 Tim 

1 I C 

most among these enthusiasts were Phygelus and Hermogenes. 

Conscious of the risk he was running, he would fain visit Prog ess 
by the way as many of his churches as he might ; and so, it l roug 

623 



624 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Macedon a appears, he determined not to take ship from Ephesus to 

to CormOi. j ta ]y^ k ut | travel overland through Macedonia to Achaia 
and thence proceed to Rome, Accordingly he turned his 
steps to Troas. During his stay there he was entertained by 
a Christian named Carpus ; and it perhaps betokens the 
burden of anxiety which pressed upon his heart in those 

cf. a Tim. days, that on his departure he forgot his mantle and his 
books, including his precious rolls of the Old Testament 
Scriptures. From Troas he would make the familiar passage 
to Neapolis, the port of Philippi ; and thence he travelled 

Cf. ver. io. by Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, where Demas 
joined his company. 1 From Thessalonica he journeyed on 
to Corinth, and there, for some unspecified reason, Erastus 
remained. It may have been that his services were needed 
in Achaia, and with so large a retinue the Apostle could 
easily spare him. There also, perhaps, he parted with two 
others of his followers. Tidings of his progress toward 
Rome had, it would seem, reached the Churches of Dalmatia 
and Gallia Cisalpina, and they desired that he should travel 
thither overland and visit them en route. This was impractic- 
able, since his mission brooked no delay ; but he responded 

Cf. 2 Tim. to the appeal by despatching two delegates. To Dalmatia 
he sent Titus, and to Gaul Crescens who is otherwise unknown 
and who may perhaps have been one of his Asian followers. 

Arrival at With his retinue thus diminished he took ship for Rome. 
It would be late in the summer of 67 when he arrived, and he 
found himself confronted by active hostility. His acquittal 
in the spring of 62 had been a grievous disappointment to the 
Roman Jews ; and when they heard of his return, they would 
bestir themselves to frustrate his design of propagating the 
Christian heresy in the capital. Nor was this a difficult 
task. His banishment from Rome had never been repealed, 
and his reappearance was a defiance of the judicial sentence. 
It might indeed, after so long an interval, have been condoned 
by the authorities, who were concerned solely with the 
maintenance of public order ; but if the question were raised 
and the old quarrel rekindled, they would in all likelihood 

Arrest enforce the decree. Here the Jews recognised their oppor- 
tunity. They had an energetic leader in one Alexander, 

x Cf. p. 5". 



SECOND IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 625 

a Jew who plied the trade of coppersmith in the city. 1 
He delated the Apostle, and the latter was arrested. 

The Emperor was not then at Rome. In the autumn of Absence 01 
66 he had betaken himself to Greece, where he played the Nero 
mountebank after his manner by competing at the public 
games and winning a succession of easy victories. 2 In the 
summer of 67 he had been present at the Isthmian Games, 
and in the autumn he was still at Corinth, busied with the 
ambitious project of cutting a canal across the Isthmus. 8 
Of course his absence did arrest the course of justice in the 
capital, and the Apostle would be arraigned before his 
representatives, perhaps the freedman Helius, who had been 
left in command of the city, or Nymphidius Sabinus, the 
second Praetorian Prefect, 4 who had remained when his 
colleague Sofonius Tigellinus accompanied their imperial 
master to the East. 5 

The initial stage in the proceedings was the prima actio or precogni- 
precognition ; 6 and here he experienced a painful disappoint- tlOQ ' 
ment. None of the Roman Christians had the courage to cf. 2 Tim. 
appear on his behalf. And indeed this is hardly surprising. lv * l6 ' 
The blame of the firing of Rome in midsummer 64 had been 
laid upon the Christians, and they had been subjected to 
savage reprisals, 7 and public odium still rested upon them. 
This aggravated the Apostle's danger, and it would deter 
the Roman Christians from taking his part and refuting the 
charges which Alexander urged against him. Less excusable 
were the friends who had accompanied him to the capital. 
So alarmed was Demas for his personal safety that he in- Cf. iv. 10. 
continently decamped and returned home to Thessalonica ; 
and the Asian contingent also took themselves off. Cf. i. 15. 

The preliminary investigation might have concluded the Remanded 
case. Had the prisoner offered no defence, he would forth- 
with have been condemned ; while, had he succeeded in 
establishing his innocence, he would have been acquitted. 
But neither happened. He had no advocate, and pleaded 

1 A different person from Alexander or Ephesus (cf. I Tim. i. 20). 
1 Cf. Lewin, Fest. Sac., 1995 f. 

* Ibid., 2053-55. * Ibid., 1919, 1968. * Ibid., 1994. 

• Cf. pp. 252 f. 

7 Cf. Tac. Ann. xv. 44; Suet. Ner. 16; Juv. 1. 155 tT. 
2 R 



inends 



626 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

cf. Ac. his own cause ; and, as in the court of Felix and at his 

Svi'. i°2^' examination before Agrippa, his defence was a statement 

of the Gospel which he preached, defining its true nature and 

showing that it was no seditious propaganda. His very 

forlornness threw him back upon God, and his impassioned 

pleading made a powerful appeal. It is an evidence of the 

profound impression which it produced that, unsupported 

as it was by witnesses, it convinced the court of the necessity 

a. a Tim. of fuller investigation, and he was remanded to prison for 
in. 1 , 17. j^j^j. ^£1 

aithfui It was no small success, and it justified him in hoping that 
his trial might issue in his acquittal. His case was indeed 
perilous, but it was in no wise desperate ; and as he lay in 
his cell, he would emplo}? his mind in ordering the arguments 
which he would urge in his defence, taking counsel with God 
and staying his heart upon His sovereign will. Nor did he 
lack at that anxious crisis the support of human affection. 
Luke and Tychicus had both stood faithful ; and another 
friend presently appeared on the scene. This was Onesi- 
Onesi- phorus. If there be any credibility in a romance of later 
P orus. days, 1 he was an old acquaintance. He had belonged 
originally to the town of Iconium in Southern Galatia, and 
when the Apostle arrived there in the autumn of 48 after 
his expulsion from Pisidian Antioch, he was welcomed and 
entertained by him and his wife Lectra and their two sons, 
Simmias and Zeno. 2 Be this as it may, Onesiphorus and his 
household were now resident at Ephesus, and he was a 
devoted member of the Church there. It seems that he was 
a deacon, 3 and he was zealous in the discharge of the charit- 
able functions belonging to his office. It happened that he 
had occasion to visit Rome in those days, probably on some 
business errand ; and on learning the Apostle's plight he 
fearlessly sought him out and gained admission to his cell. 
Since his visits were frequent, it would appear that he made 
a considerable stay in the capital, perhaps protracting his 
sojourn that he might cheer the venerable prisoner. 
Letter to i n their converse they would talk much of Ephesus, and 

Timothy. J r 

1 Act. Paul, et Thecl. 2. 

? Several MSS. introduce their names in 2 Tim. iv. 1 9. 

• Cf. i. 18, where the best authorities omit /wou 



SECOND IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 627 

the Apostle would inquire how the Church had been faring 
of late in the troubled city. He learned that the situation 
had in nowise eased. The Gnostic heresy was still active, 
and Timothy was still disheartened. A fresh apprehension 
invaded the Apostle's mind. His Asian followers had 
returned home, and they would publish the story of his arrest 
and his perilous situation. He knew Timothy's timidity, 
and he feared lest the heavy tidings should overwhelm him. 
And so he set about the writing of a letter which would 
rally his courage and keep him faithful to his charge. 



THE SECOND LETTER TO TIMOTHY 

At the outset he strikes the keynote of his message by the The 
use of a novel formula. In his first letter to Timothy, writing address ' 
amid his missionary activities, he styled himself ' an Apostle 
of Christ Jesus according to the command of God our 
Saviour ' ; now, writing under the shadow of death, he 
styles himself ' an Apostle of Christ Jesus according to the 
promise of life in Christ Jesus.' 

i. 1 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God 
2 according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, 
a beloved child. Grace, mercy, peace from God the Father 
and Christ Jesus our Lord. 

He begins with an exquisitely tender expression of his Expression 
personal regard and affection for Timothy. Their long°^J*° nal 
intimacy was a gracious memory which filled his heart with 
gratitude to God. It grieved him that so gentle a spirit 
should be so hardly bested, and he would fain be with him ; 
yet it reassured him when he thought of the beautiful faith 
which had sanctified his early home and which, he was 
confident, dwelt in his own heart. 

3 I am thankful to God, whom I serve as my ancestors did 
before me with a clean conscience, that I have such unceasing 

4 remembrance of you in my prayers night and day. Mindful 
of your tears, I am longing to see you, that I may be filled 

5 with joy ; and I recall the unaffected faith which is in you — a 
faith which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your 
mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that it dwells in you too. 



628 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Challenge 
to 

Timothy's 
manhood. 



It was this persuasion that had moved him to ordain 
Timothy to his hard ministry at Ephesus, and he bids him 
justify it. His position was indeed difficult, and this con- 
stituted a challenge to his manhood ; and recent events had 
only accentuated it. The Apostle's peril was an appeal to 
Timothy's chivalry and devotion, his faith in the Gospel 
which had divested death of its terror and irradiated the 
hereafter with the assurance of immortality. This glorious 
prospect was the Apostle's inspiration in that black strait. 
His destiny was in safe keeping : Christ would ' guard the 
deposit.' 



6 This is the reason why I remind you to fan into a flame God's 
gift of grace which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 

7 For the spirit which God gave us is not a spirit of cowardice ; 

8 no, it is a spirit of power and love and mastery. Do not, then, 
be ashamed of the testimony which our Lord claims, nor of 
me His prisoner; no, share my hardships for the Gospel, as 

9 God gives you power, He who saved us and called us with a 
holy calling, not according to our works but according to His 
own purpose and the grace which was given us in Christ Jesus 

io ere the ages began, and has now been manifested through the 
appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus. He has undone death 
ii and illumined life and incorruption through the Gospel, for 
12 which I was set as a herald and apostle and teacher. And 
that is the reason why I am suffering all this. Yet I am not 
ashamed ; for I know Him in whom I have reposed faith, and 
I am persuaded that He has the power to guard what I have 
deposited with Him against that Day. 



Conserva- This suggests a practical exhortation. His soul was the 

Evangelic 6 ' deposit ' which the Apostle had committed to Christ's 

Tradition, keeping ; but there was another deposit which Christ had 

committed to His faithful ministers — the record of His 

revelation, that oral tradition which was so gravely imperilled 

in those days by the legend-mongering of the Gnostic heretics. 

Its inviolate preservation and its transmission, unimpaired 

and uncorrupted, constituted the. supreme duty of every 

Christian teacher. There was as yet no written Gospel, 

but already Luke had anticipated his work as an Evangelist 

iTim.vi. 3 . by drawing up an outline of ' the healthful words of our Lord 

Jesus Christ ' ; and Paul bids Timothy make faithful and 

loving use of it. 






SECOND IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 629 

13 Provide yourself, in the faith and love which are in Christ 
Jesus, with an outline of the healthful words which you heard 

14 from me. The genuine Deposit guard through the Holy Spirit 
who dwells in us. 

The Asians who had deserted the Apostle in his need had Exemplary 
returned home, and Timothy had heard the story of his onesi- 
arrest, particularly from the lips of the two Ephesians, i )horus - 
Phygelus and Hermogenes. It was likely that their alarm 
would create a panic in the Church, and by way of antidote 
he mentions the courage which Onesiphorus had displayed. 
It had greatly cheered him, and he invokes a blessing not 
only on Onesiphorus at Rome but on his household at 
Ephesus. 

15 You know this, that all your Asians turned their backs 

16 on me, and among them Phygelus and Hermogenes. The 
Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus ; for he 
many a time refreshed me, and he was not ashamed of my 

17 chain, but on his arrival in Rome he eagerly sought for me 

18 and found me. The Lord grant that he may find mercy 
from the Lord on that Day ! And of all his service in the 
deaconship at Ephesus you are very well aware. 

It was not merely for personal reasons that he mentioned Exhorta- 
the incident. His hope was that so fine an example would {^edevo- 
shame the pusillanimity of Phygelus and Hermogenes and tion « 
rally the Church, especially Timothy. And so he exhorts 
the latter to prosecute his ministry in the strength of Christ's 
grace, particularly that transcendently important office — 
the guardianship of the Evangelic Tradition and the discipline 
of competent catechists, and to face the stern conflict 
manfully. Hardship was inevitable, but this is a condition of 
every gallant achievement. Think of the soldier and the 
athlete. And without it there is no reward. The husband- 
man is entitled to his harvest, but he must win it by hard 
toil. All this is a parable ; and the truth finds its supreme 
exemplification in ' Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a 
descendant of David/ Observe the significance of this 
appellation ' Jesus Christ ' occurring side by side with 
' Christ Jesus ' — ' the grace which Christ Jesus supplies/ 
' an honourable soldier of Christ Jesus/ ' the salvation which 
is in Christ Jesus/ The former — first Jesus, then Christ — is 



630 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the order which the Synoptic Gospels follow, beginning with 
our Lord's humanity and rising to His deity ; the latter — 
first Christ, then Jesus — is the order of the Fourth Gospel, 
which begins in Eternity and tells how the Word became 
i Tim. i. i. flesh. 1 ' Christ Jesus,' descending from Heaven and dis- 
covering the heart of the Unseen Father, is our Hope ; ' Jesus 
Christ,' sharing our mortal weakness and attaining, through 
suffering and death, to the glory at God's right hand, is our 
Example, inspiring us to endurance and assuring us of 
ultimate triumph. 

ii. i You then, my child, find your power in the grace which 

2 Christ Jesus supplies ; and what you heard from me with the 
corroboration of many witnesses, deposit in the keeping of 
faithful men, such as will be qualified in turn to teach 

3 others. Take your share of hardship as an honourable 

4 soldier of Christ Jesus. No one, when he goes a-soldiering, 
entangles himself with the business of his livelihood : his 
aim is to win the approval of the officer who enlisted him. 

3 And if one engages in an athletic contest, he is not crowned 

6 unless he have observed the rules of the contest. The 
husbandman who does the toil must be the first to participate 

7 in the fruits. Perceive my meaning : the Lord will give you 
understanding in every case. 

8 Keep in memory Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a 

9 descendant of David, according to my Gospel. It is in this 
Gospel's service that I am suffering hardship and have been 
put in bonds like a criminal. But the Word of God has not 

io been bound. Therefore I endure everything for the sake 
of His chosen, that they too may obtain salvation — the 
salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and with ; t glory eternal. 
ii Faithful is the word : 

' If we died with Him, 

we shall also live with Him ; 
%2 If we endure, 

we shall also reign with Him J 
If we shall deny, 
He also will deny us ; 
13 If we are faithless, 

He remains faithful : 
Deny Himself He cannot.' 

The surest Such was the message with which Timotly was charged, 
5 the " and it was by proclaiming and commending t that he would 
heresy. m0 st effectively counteract the heretical teachers. Con- 

1 Cf. p. 379. 



SECOND IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 631 

spicuous among the latter were two, Hymenaeus and Philetus, 
who allegorised the Christian promise of the Resurrection as 
signifying not a future consummation but a present experi- 
ence, the rising of the regenerate from the grave of their 
earthly bodies and their realisation of the spiritual life. 1 
Such subtleties were indeed pernicious, poisoning men's 
minds and operating like a stealthy cancer. But con- 
troversy was useless and harmful, issuing only in strife and 
embitterment. The surest refutation of error is the exhibition 
of the truth. And the truth was secure. It was an ancient Cf. Dt i? 
fashion with the Israelites to publish their faith by inscribing 9 * x 
holy texts above their doorways ; and the Church bore her 
seal. It was a double seal, one side visible to the eye of 
God alone and the other discernible by human judgment. 
What though there were impostors in the Christian com- 
munity ? The Lord recognised His own, and profession was 
tested by character. The commingling of true and false is 
meanwhile inevitable ; and just as the Lord had likened the Mt. »ii. 
Church to a field where wheat and tares grow side by side, 24 " 3 °* 
so the Apostle likens her to a great house which contains 
both precious and worthless vessels. Timothy's duty was 
plain. He must shun evil and exhibit on his own life ' the 
broad seal of Heaven ' ; and he must seek lovingly and 
patiently to win the errorists to repentance. 

14 Remind men of all this, solemnly charging them in the sight 
of God to refrain from verbal disputation, a thing which 

15 serves no useful end and tends to subvert the hearers. Do your 
best to present yourself to God as sterling coin, a workman 
who has no need to be ashamed of his right handling of the 

16 Word of Truth. As for profane babblings, avoid them; for 

17 they will make further progress in irreligion, and their talk 
will keep eating like a cancer. Of this sort are Hymenasus and 

18 Philetus. They have missed the mark in relation to the 
truth, saying that resurrection is an accomplished experience ; 
and they are upsetting the faith of some. 

19 Yet God's firm foundation stands fast, bearing this seal 

' The Lord knows those who are His ' and ' Let every one who Num. xvi. 
"names the Lord's name" depart from unrighteousness.' f s L j^.' I3 

20 In a great house there are not only gold and silver vessels but 
also wooden and earthen, and some for honourable and others 

1 The doctrine of the Naasenes (Hippol. v. 3). Cf. Iren. II. xlviii. 2 ; Tert. 
De Resurr. Cam. 19. 



632 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

21 for dishonourable use. If, then, one clear himself out from 
the latter, he will be a vessel for honourable use, sanctified, 

22 serviceable to the master, prepared for every good work. Fly 
youthful desires, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peaceful 
fellowship with those who call on the Lord out of a clean heart. 

23 But with foolish and uninstructed questionings have nothing 

24 to do, knowing that they breed quarrels ; and a slave of the 
Lord must not quarrel but be gentle toward all, apt at teaching, 

25 patient of ill, 1 in meekness instructing those who steel them- 
selves against him, 2 in the hope that God may grant them 

26 repentance issuing in full knowledge of the truth, and that, 
coming to their sober senses, they ma}' escape from the Devil's 
snare and be captured by him to serve God's will. 

a premoni- Those defections from the truth were no surprise ; for they 
approach- seemed to the Apostle, sharing as he did the primitive ex- 
mgEnd. pectation of the Lord's speedy return to judgment, pre- 
parations for the approaching consummation. He describes 
the abounding wickedness, dwelling especially on the malign 
machinations of the heretical teachers who, after the con- 
stant fashion of spiritualistic charlatans, found their readiest 
dupes in credulous and neurotic females. It is indeed a dark 
picture, and it is no wonder that it seemed to him prophetic 
of the end. In truth, however, iniquity always abounds, 
and it has appeared to devout souls in every generation as 
though the world were hastening to its doom. The antidote 
lies in remembrance of the past ; and, not without incon- 
sistency, the Apostle proceeds to refute his own eschato- 
logical inference by reminding Timothy that the situation 
was in nowise unprecedented. His Ephesian adversaries 
had their prototypes in the Egyptian magicians who had 
opposed Moses and who in Jewish legend bore the names of 
Jannes and Jambres ; and they would be confounded like 
their predecessors. 

iii. i But recognise this — that in the last days distressful 

2 seasons will set in. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of 
money, braggarts, swaggerers, calumniators, disobedient to 

3 parents, unthankful, unholy, destitute of natural affection, 
truceless, slanderers, uncontrolled, savage, no lovers of the 

4 good, betrayers, reckless, swollen with windy pride, loving 

5 pleasure more than God, with an outward form of religion 

1 ave*lKa.Kos, a medical term. Cf. Moulton and Milligan, Voc. 
? Cf. Moulton and Milligan, Voc. under avTiSiarierjiu. 



SECOND IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 633 

while they have denied its power. On these turn your back. 

6 For to this sort belong those who sneak into houses and 
captivate weak women heaped over with sins, the sport of 

7 capricious desires, always learning and ever powerless to 

8 reach a full knowledge of the Truth. And even as Jannes cf. Ex. vii 
and Jainbres 1 opposed Moses, so these also oppose the ". 22 - 
Truth, men mentally debased, counterfeit coin in relation to 

9 the Faith. However, they will make no further progress ; 
for their mentality will be exposed just as it happened with 
the others. 

There was no occasion for disquietude, and the Apostle a personal 
introduces a personal appeal. It was nigh twenty years since appeaL 
Timothy had made his acquaintance, and throughout that 
long period the example of his father in Christ had been 
before his eyes. Among his childish memories were the 
persecutions which the Apostle had encountered in Galatia 
— at Antioch, Iconium, and his native town of Lystra — 
and the deliverances which had been vouchsafed him. 
Suffering was inevitable in Christ's service, and Timothy 
would not forget his master's example or belie his own early 
promise. These were dark days, and there was urgent and 
ever increasing need of faithful service. Timothy's difficul- 
ties were a challenge to his devotion, and it was accentuated 
by the prospect of the Apostle's death. Soon he would be 
gone and receive the crown of his long conflict, and then it 
would lie with Timothy to continue his work and win the 
same reward. 

10 But you followed the course of my discipline, my conduct, 
my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my endurance, 

11 my persecutions, my sufferings — what was done to me at 
Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra ; what persecutions I under- 

12 went, and how the Lord rescued me from them all. Yes, 
and all who wish to live religiously in Christ Jesus will be 

13 persecuted. But evil men and magicians 2 will progress from 

14 bad to worse, deceiving and deceived. But as for you, continue 
in all that you learned and were assured of, knowing from 

1 The Rabbinical names of the Egyptian magicians. Cf. Wetstein. Jewish 
fables were employed by the Gnostic legend-mongers. Cf. Evang. Nicod. {Gest, 
PH.), v. 

* The successors of Jannes and Jambres. Like all the Gnostics (cf . Eus. Hist, 
Eccl. iv. 7), the Naasenes practised magic-incantations and exorcisms (cf. I Tim. 
iv. 1), and they found a fitting arena in Ephesus, the home of magic (cf. p. 228), 



634 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

15 whom you learned it, and that since your infancy you have 
known the Sacred Writings which have power to give you 
the wisdom that issues in salvation through faith in Christ 

16 Jesus. ' Every God-breathing scripture is also profitable in 
connection with discipline, with refutation, with correction, 

17 with instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may 
be perfect, equipped for every good work.' x 

iv. 1 I solemnly charge you in the sight of God and of Christ 
Jesus who will soon judge living and dead, and by His Ap- 

2 pearing and His Kingdom : proclaim the Word ; be urgent in 
season, out of season ; refute, rebuke, exhort, always patient 

3 in your teaching. For there will be a season when they will 
not put up with the healthful Discipline, but, wanting to have 
their ears tickled, will accumulate teachers to suit their own 

4 desires, and from the Truth they will turn away their ears 

5 and be turned aside to their fables. But as for you, keep 
your sober senses in all circumstances ; surfer hardship ; do 

6 the work of an evangelist ; discharge your ministry. For 
Cf. Phil, il already is the drink-offering of my blood being poured forth, 
I7 * 7 and the season for my unloosing has arrived. I have faced 

the honourable contest, I have finished the course, I have 
8 kept the Faith ; and now there is in store for me the crown 
of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will 
award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all 
who have loved His Appearing. 

a darkened This intimation of his certain and imminent martyrdom 
prospect j s significant Hitherto the letter has been a message of 
counsel and encouragement to Timothy, contemplating his 
Cf. i. 4. continuance at. Ephesus and expressing the Apostle's longing 
to see him there again in the event of his release. But it 
seems as though at this point tidings had reached the 
prisoner which quenched his lingering hope. His case 

1 A quotation from the Teacher's Manual (cf. p. 594). deSirvevo-ros may be 
(i) like efxirvevaroi, passive, 'breathed by God,' divinitus inspirata (Vulg.). Cf. 
Plut. De Plac. Phil. 904 F : rov% oveipovs tovs deoirvetiaTovs. Pseud. -Phocyl. 12 1 : 
tt}S bk deoTTvetivTov ao<plr)$. (2) Like dirvevaros, eOirvevcrros, active, ' breathing 
God.' Thus Marcus Eremita ^Egyptius was 6 BedTPevaros av-qp (Wetstein), 
* breathing God' as a flower breathes its perfume (cf. 2 Cor. ii. 15). Hence, 
since everything about a holy man is holy, it was used of some belonging of a 
holy man. Cf. Nonn. Paraphr. I. 99 : lp.6.vra. deoirvtvcrToio iredl\ov, ' the latchet 
of His God-breathing sandal.' So here. It was properly the sacred writers, 
virb UvevpuxTos'Ayiov fepSfievoi (2 Pet. i. 21), that were 'God-breathing,' but just 
as the Lord's sandals were 'God-breathing,' so the sacred writings were 'God- 
breathing' too. The passive sense, 'every God-breathed scripture,' is inadmissible, 
since it is the Spirit, not the Scripture, that is the breath of God (cf. Jo. xx. 22). 



SECOND IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 635 

had taken an adverse turn. Something had emerged, 
and whatever it may have been, it sealed his doom. He 
recognised that his condemnation was certain, and he 
now alters his instructions to Timothy. He would never 
return to Ephesus and see him there ; yet he would fain 
see him again if only to bid him farewell. And so he 
charges him to leave Ephesus and hasten to Rome. There 
was no foreseeing how long his imprisonment might drag on 
ere he was brought to trial ; and he directs Timothy to 
convey to him the belongings which he had left at Troas — his 
mantle, of which he was feeling the need as the days grew 
chillier, and his manuscripts and rolls of the Old Testament 
Scriptures which, as St. Chrysostom suggests, he desired to 
bequeath to his faithful friends — and also to bring with him 
John Mark whom, after their happy reconciliation during his 
former imprisonment at Rome, he had sent to Asia, and who 
was now labouring presumably at Ephesus. 1 The reason 
which he alleges is that in his desolation Mark's tendance 
would be helpful to him, and it was the more needful, since 
he was despatching his present attendant Tychicus to convey 
the latter to Ephesus ; but doubtless there also was a gracious 
intention in the request. It was a final testimony that the 
old quarrel was buried in oblivion. He would fain die at 
peace with all men. 

9, 10 Do your best to join me soon. For Demas abandoned me 
for love of the present age, and went his way to Thessalonica. 

11 Crescens went to Galatia, 2 Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone 
is with me. Bring Mark along with you ; for he is service- 

12 able in waiting upon me, and I am sending Tychicus 3 to 

13 Ephesus. The mantle 4 which I left at Troas in the house 
of Carpus, fetch when you come, and the books, especially 

14 the parchments. 5 Alexander the coppersmith displayed 

1 Cf. p. 566. 8 Cf. p. 613. 

8 cLiriGTeiXa, epistolary aorist. Cf. p. 219. 

4 {peXovys (<pat.v6\T]s), pcEnula, 'mantle.' Suidas : x iT(aVL<rii0 ^' °* & iraXaioi, 
e<pe<TTpl8a ('wrapper'). The word signified also a portfolio for carrying books. 
Cf. Chrys. : (pekbvqv iuravda rb ifia.Tiov \eyec' rives Si <pa<ri to yXwaaoKOfiov fvda. 

T<X /3t/3Xta €K€t.TO. 

6 The ' books ' were probably documents of his own, written on papyrus, the 
common writing-material ; while the ' parchments ' were his precious rolls 
(volumina) of the O. T., written on vellum. Cf. Theodrt. : penPpdvas r& et'X^ra 
K{'k\7]K€J>' ovtios yap 'PwjUtuot koKqww t» dippaTa, 



636 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

Ps.ixii. 12; much rancour against me: 'the Lord will requite him 
Prov. xxiv. ! 5 according to his works.' And against him be you too on 

16 your guard ; for he stoutly opposed our cause. At my first 
defence no one supported me, but all abandoned me : may 

17 it not be reckoned to their account ! However, the Lord stood 
by me and put power into me, that through me the message 
might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles hear it ; and 

Ps. kxii. 21. 18 1 was rescued ' from the lion's mouth.' The Lord will 
deliver me from every evil work and bring me safe into 
His Heavenly Kingdom. Glory to Him for ever and ever. 
Amen. 



closing The letter closes, after the accustomed manner, with 
greetings. p ersona i greetings, and even here the Apostle's disquietude 
intrudes. He sends greeting to his old friends Prisca and 
Aquila and to the family of good Onesiphorus ; and then, 
with generous consideration, he pauses to do justice to an 
absent comrade. He has just described his forlorn condition 
by way of justifying his request that Timothy and Mark 
should hasten to him. Of all the companions who had set 
forth with him from Asia, only Luke remained. Tychicus 
indeed had also stood faithful, but he was the bearer of the 
letter to Ephesus and he would presently be gone. They 
had not all deserted him, and he has explained the absence 
of Crescens and Titus ; but now he bethinks himself that he 
has made no mention of Erastus, and, lest it should be 
inferred that he too had proved recreant, he repairs the 
omission and explains that ' Erastus had stayed at Corinth.' 
And with a like purpose he mentions that Trophimus, another 
of his Ephesian followers, was absent inasmuch as he had 
fallen sick at Miletus. Then he reverts to his own urgent 
need. It was the autumn, and two or three weeks would 
elapse ere his summons reached Ephesus. Since navigation 
was dangerous after the autumnal solstice and was entirely 
suspended after the first week of November, there was no 
time to lose. And so he amends his injunction : ' Do your 
best to join me soon/ ' Do your best,' he says, ' to come ere 
winter.' And then, as though to prove that, little as they 
had availed him in his need, the Roman Christians were still 
true to him, he sends greetings not only from their leaders 
but from ' all the brothers/ 



I 



SECOND IMPRISONMENT AT ROME 637 

19 Greet Prisca and Aquila and the house of Onesiphorus. 

20 Erastus remained at Corinth, and Trophimus I left at 
Miletus, ill. 

21 Do your best to come ere winter. Eubulus and Pudens 
and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers greet you. 

22 The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you 

ALL. 



THE APOSTLE'S MARTYRDOM 

what It has appeared that in the course of the writing of his letter 
Apostle's 6 to Timothy the Apostle's case took an adverse turn. His 
doom: successful defence at the prehminary examination had en- 
couraged the anticipation that his formal trial would issue 
cf. i. 4. in his acquittal ; and when he began the letter he cherished 
the hope that ere long he would rejoin Timothy at Ephesus. 
Cf. iv. 6-8. But presently the prospect was overclouded. His hope 
vanished. He recognised that his doom was sealed, and he 
Cf. iv. 9, 21. penned an urgent entreaty that Timothy should hasten to 
Rome and be with him at the end. What was it that had 
happened so untowardly ? Evidence is lacking, but there 
are two suggestions which are not without probability. 
(1) His de- At the precognition the Apostle had been arraigned on 
de?r C ee°of he * ne °^ charge of seditious propagandism ; and, though it 
banish- was aggravated by the calumny that it was the Christians 
who had fired the city in the year 64, he had succeeded in 
demonstrating its unreasonableness. It was likely that, if 
he were brought to trial on that score, he would be acquitted ; 
Cf. iv. 14, and it would seem that his Jewish prosecutors, particularly 
IS * Alexander the coppersmith, fearing lest their prey should 

escape, had resolved to concentrate on the circumstance 
that he had been expelled from Rome five and a half years 
previously and had now returned in defiance of the edict. 
Here he could offer no defence, and his condemnation was 
inevitable. This is indeed mere conjecture, yet there is 
reason for it ; and it is this. Timothy, his companion 
during his first imprisonment, would be included in the 
edict of expulsion in March 62, and in bidding him hasten 
ct iv. 15. to Rome the Apostle warns him of the danger which he would 
run, since it was likely that Alexander would proceed against 
him also. Nor was the apprehension groundless. At all 

638 






THE APOSTLE'S MARTYRDOM 639 

events some two years later the author of the anonymous 
Epistle to the Hebrews informs his readers that Timothy had ail 23. 
been set at liberty, and it is a reasonable inference that he 
had reached Rome ere the end and had been arrested. 1 
Luke ran the same risk, yet it does not appear that he was 
arrested ; and the fact that Timothy was assailed by Jewish 
animosity would seem to prove how fearlessly, despite his 
constitutional timidity, he had supported his beloved master. 

Nor is this the only suggestion. At the precognition in (2) The 
autumn Nero had been absent in Greece ; but presently &™J* 
some state crisis had arisen, and he had been hastily sum- P leasure - 
moned back to Rome. 2 The case of a poor Jewish stranger 
would naturally have concerned him nothing, but an incident 
had occurred which touched him closely. St. Chrysostom 
relates that, probably during the interval between his 
arrival in the city and his arrest, Paul had encountered a 
beautiful concubine of the dissolute Emperor and had won 
her for Christ ; and when she refused to resume the un- 
hallowed alliance, the incensed tyrant wreaked his vengeance 
on the Apostle and had him sentenced to death. 3 

There is intrinsic probability in the story, nor would His 
St. Chrysostom have lightly retailed a baseless fable ; and s 
it strikingly illustrates the sudden change in the Apostle's 
fortunes. The Emperor's displeasure sealed his doom. It 
would be toward the close of the year when he was brought 
into court, and he was sentenced to execution, not, like the 
Apostle Peter who, according to tradition, was tried and 
condemned on the self-same day, by the servile supplicium 
of crucifixion but, as became a Roman citizen, by decapi- 
tation. 

It was a merciful ordinance of the Roman Senate that ten 

■That precious scripture, the Epistle to the Hebrews, is certainly not Paul's 
work. Ancient opinion is thus stated by St. Jerome [Catal. Script. Eccl. under 
Paulus Apostolus) : ' The Epistle addressed to the Hebrews is not believed, on 
account of the difference of style and language, to be his work but a work either 
of Barnabas, according to Tertullian, or of the Evangelist Luke, according to 
some, or of Clement afterward Bishop of the Roman Church, who, they say, 
arranged and adorned the opinions of Paul in his own language.' It was an acute 
and attractive sugger tion of Luther that the author was Apollos, the learned and 
eloquent Jewish Christian of Alexandria. 

8 Cf. Lewin, 2055. 

* Chrys. Adv. Vitup. Vit. Monast. 1. iv. 



640 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

His days should elapse between the condemnation of a criminal 

execution. an( j y s execu tion in order that the Emperor, should he think 
fit, might grant him a free pardon; 1 and though it was too 
often overridden by personal or political animosity, it was 
doubtless observed in the Apostle's case. He was con- 
ducted from the court and recommitted to his cell, and on the 
tenth day he was led forth to death. It was customary, 
especially when there was some likelihood of a popular 
demonstration, that an execution should take place outside 
the city ; 2 and so it was ordered in the case of Paul, perhaps 
in view of the turbulence of his Jewish enemies. The scene 
of his execution, according to the constant testimony of 
tradition, 3 was a spot subsequently known as Aquce Salvia 
some two miles southward from the Ostian Gate. It was 
excellently suited for a public spectacle, being a hollow 
girt by low hills and thus forming a sort of natural amphi- 
theatre. Thither he would be conducted by a detachment 
of the Praetorian Guard under the command of a centurion, 
and the procession would be followed by a noisy and insulting 
rabble. For a mile and a quarter the route lay along the 
Ostian Way, passing to the right just outside the Ostian 
Gate the conspicuous Pyramid of Caius Cestius Epulo ; 4 
and thence it diverged for three-quarters of a mile into the 
New Ardeatine Way, whence a lane leads down to Aquce 
Salvia. There his eyes were bound and his head laid on the 
block and severed by the headsman's axe. 
Tre This is the utmost that may be surely believed of the 

Apostle's martyrdom ; and of all the devout imaginations of 
later days there is perhaps only one which is worthy of 
regard. In the valley of Aquce Salvice stand three churches, 
and one of these, named San Paolo alle Tre Fontane, occupies, 
it is affirmed, the very spot where he died. 5 The story is 
that, when his head was struck off, it rebounded thrice, 
and each time it smote the ground, a living fountain gushed 
forth possessing a healing virtue, whence the name Aquce 
Salvice, ' the Healing Waters/ And there is a heart of 

1 Cf. Suet. Tib. 75 ; Tac. Ann. ill. 51. * Cf. Tac. Hist. iv. 11. 

* Cf. Act. Petr. et Paul. 37 : rb 5£ rou aylov IIcuJXov (<rS/j.a) eh tt\v 'OtttjcIcui 
6&6p airb fu\l(j)P Svo ttjs 7r6Xe«s. 

4 Cf. Baedeker, Central Italy, p. 329. ' Ibid., p. 448. 



Fontane* 



THE APOSTLE'S MARTYRDOM 641 

truth in the beautiful legend. Like the superscription on 
the Cross in Hebrew and Greek and Latin, the Three Fountains 
aptly symbolise the Apostle's Gospel of world-wide salvation. 

There is an early and* steadfast tradition that he was His burial 
buried by the Ostian Way, 1 and the Church of San Paolo, 
on the site of a small church erected by the Emperor Con- 
stantine about a mile outside the Ostian Gate, marks his 
resting-place. The story is that after his execution his 
mutilated body was cast into the criminals' charnel-house, 
and a Roman convert, a lady named Lucina, sought it and 
bore it away and buried it in her own garden. 2 There 
beside the city of his desire lies his mortal body, awaiting 
the day when, according to his Gospel, it shall be raised 
immortal and clothed with incorruption, and his undimmed 
eyes behold the City of God, the realisation of his wistful 
dream. 

1 Cf. the Roman Presbyter Caius in Eus. Hist. Ecd. II. 25. 
* Cf . Baedeker, Central Italy, pp. 445 f. 



2 S 



APPENDIX 



PAULINE CHRONOLOGY 



Saul's Birth at Tarsus a.d. i 

In the Oratio Encomiastica in Principes Apostolorum 
Petrum et Paidum, erroneously ascribed to Chrys., Paul's 
career is thus summarised : TpiaKovrcnrkvTz iSovXeva-t t$ Kvpty 

para Tracr^s 7rpoUv[xia<i' TeAecras 8k rov vTztp rrjs €U(re/3«ias Bpop,ov 

dvc-iravaaTo a>s ctoic e^-qKoura Sktu), 'Thirty-five years he served 
the Lord with all eagerness ; and having finished his course 
in the cause of religion he went to his rest about sixty- 
eight years of age.' The precision and confidence of this 
statement attest it as a recognised tradition ; and if it be 
accepted, then, since he was executed toward the close of 67 
(vid. infra), he was born about the year 1, five or six years 
later than our Lord (cf. The Days of His Flesh, pp. 11 f.), 
and converted about 33. 

Martyrdom of Stephen ..... April 33 

From the activity of the Hellenist synagogues (cf. Ac. vi. 
9) it is probable that it was during the paschal week, when 
the city was thronged with foreign worshippers, that Stephen 
was arrested. In 33 the Passover fell on April 2 (cf. Lewin, 
Fasti Sacri, p. 241). 

Saul's Conversion summer of 33 

The persecution in Jerusalem was sharp and short, and 
as soon as he had finished the work there Saul set out for 
Damascus (cf. Ac. viii. 3, ix. 1, 2). The thunder-storm (cf. ix. 
3) suggests the heat of midsummer. Moreover, it would seem 
to have been summer-time when he returned to Jerusalem 
three years later, since all the Apostles except Peter were 
then absent from the city, probably on missions. They 
would not travel in the winter (cf. Mt. xxiv. 20). 

Stay at Damascus . . . summer 33 — summer 36 

A period of three years broken by a season of retirement 

in Arabia (Gal. i. 17, 18). Cf. Ac. ix. 23 ; ^/xepcu iKavai — 

a vague phrase denoting generally a considerable time 

(cf. Ac. ix. 43, xviii. 18, xxvii. 7). Its use here of a period 

645 



646 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

of three years is precisely paralleled by i Ki. ii. 38, 39 : 
' Shimei dwelt in Jerusalem many days (D^n D*»J). And 

it came to pass at the end of three years, etc.* The order 
of events here is (1) confession of Jesus in the synagogues 
of Damascus ' for some days ' (Ac. ix. iq, 20) ; (2) retirement 
in Arabia (Gal. i. 17) — perhaps several months ; (3) active 
propaganda in Damascus (Ac. ix. 22) — over two years. 

Fortnight's Visit to Jerusalem (Ac. ix. 26-30 ; Gal. i. 18, 
19) ....... summer 36 

In Tarsus and Syria-Cilicia (Ac. ix. 30 : Gal. i. 21) 

summer 36 — summer 45 

Agrippa's Persecution . . spring and early summer 44 
Ac. xii. 1-23 is a digression explanatory of the situation 
presented in xi. 27-30. The persecution was in progress 
at Passover and terminated with Agrippa's sudden death 
during the celebration of the victorious return of the Emperor 
Claudius from Britain in spring 44 (cf. Jos. Ant. xix. viii. 
2). The tidings would take some time to reach Judaea, 
and it would be summer ere the celebration was held. Cf. 
Lewin, 1674. 

Arrival at Antioch of Fugitive Prophets (Ac. xi. 27) 

late in 44 

Prediction of Famine (Ac. xi. 28) . . . spring 45 

Saul's call to Antioch (Ac. xi. 25, 26) . summer 45 

Eleemosynary Expedition to Jerusalem (Ac. xi. 30 ; Gal. 
ii. 1) . . . . . . . summer 46 

The famine happened under the procurators Cuspius 
Fadus and Tiberius Alexander (cf. Jos. Ant. xx. v. 2) ; i.e., 
it began while the former was still in office and continued 
after the latter's accession. The administration of Fadus 
began in 44, and Alexander's ended in 48. The dividing 
year is unrecorded, but if each held office for equal terms, 
then it was 46 ; and thus the period of the famine was 45-46. 
Cf. Lewin, p. lxix, 1701. Orosius indeed assigns the famine 
to the year 44 (vii. 6) ; but it appears that he has miscal- 
culated the events of Claudius' reign and antedated them all 
by a year (cf. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 68). Further, 
if it was in the fourteenth year after his conversion that 
Paul paid his eleemosynary visit to Jerusalem (cf. Gal. ii. 1), 
then that visit fell in the summer of 46. 

Conference at Jerusalem . . . late summer 46 

It is assumed in the text that Gal. ii. 1-10 refers to Paul's 

second visit to Jerusalem (cf. Ac. xi. 29, 30, xii. 25). So 

Tert. Contra Marc, 1. 20 ; Eus. Chron. Pasch. ; Calv. ; 



PAULINE CHRONOLOGY 647 

Caspari, Chron. and Geogr. Introd., 35 ; Ramsay, St. Paul 
the Traveller, pp. 51-60 ; Lake, Earlier Epistles, pp. 279-86. 
Other views, however, have been taken : 1. Irenaeus (111. 
xiii. 3) connected Gal. ii. 1-10 with the third visit (cf. Ac. 
xv. 1-29), identifying the conference with the Council at 
Jerusalem. And this is the general opinion in modern times 
(Grot., Neand., Baur, Meyer, Conybeare and Howson, 
Farrar, Weizsacker, Lightfoot). 2. Wieseler connected it 
with the fourth visit (cf. Ac. xviii. 22). 3. Epiphanius 
(xx viii. 4) thought of the fifth visit (cf. Ac. xxi. 15 ff.), an 
opinion which no one shares. The choice lies between the 
second visit and the third ; and the evidence for the former 
is conclusive. (1) Paul says that he ' went up in pursuance 
of a revelation ' (Gal. ii. 2) ; and this can hardly be other 
than a reference to the prophecy of Agabus (cf. Ac. xi. 
27-30). At the third visit he went up by the Church's 
appointment (cf. Ac. xv. 2). (2) k<xt' iSCav rots Sokovo-lv 
(Gal. ii. 2) implies a private conference and not an open 
discussion (cf. Ac. xv. 6, 22). (3) The argument in Gal. 
i. 17-ii. 10 is decisive. Paul maintains that he had received 
his Gospel from the Lord and not from the Twelve, and this 
he demonstrates by recounting his dealings with the latter. 
He specifies two interviews, one three years and the other 
fourteen after his conversion, at neither of which had they 
questioned his doctrine ; and it would have been fatal to his 
argument had there actually been during the interval another 
interview (cf. Ac. xi. 29, 30) which he suppresses. Lightfoot 
pleads that it was legitimate for him to ignore the second 
visit since it fell, as he calculates, during Agrippa's per- 
secution and the Apostles had fled from the city, adducing 
by way of evidence that the Antiochene bounty was de- 
livered not to the Apostles but to the Elders (cf. Ac. xi. 30). 
But (a) ' the Elders ' is a generic term for the leaders of the 
Church and may include the Apostles (cf. 1 Pet. v. 1). 
(b) A persecution which drove the Apostles from Jerusalem 
would have prevented the visit of the relief-party. In 
fact Agrippa's persecution had happened two years earlier. 
Nor (c) does it appear that the Apostles fled from it any more 
than from the fiercer persecution under Saul (cf. p. 46). It is 
indeed said that on his escape from prison Peter betook 
himself to Mary's house and then went ek erepov tottov' 
(Ac. xii. 17) ; but this need not mean ' to another town.' 
Rather ' to another house ' — his own lodging in the city. 

Unfortunately the chronological note ' then after an 
interval of fourteen years ' (Gal. ii. 1) — i.e., according to the 
ancient reckoning, thirteen full years — is indecisive, since it 
is questionable whether the starting-point of the calculation 
is the conversion in 33 or the previous visit in 36. On the 



648 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

former and more probable view the occasion was, as the 
foregoing evidence proves, the eleemosynary visit in 46 
(Ac. xi. 29, 30) ; on the latter it would be the visit to the 
Council in 49 (cf. Ac. xv. 2). 

Saul's Vision in the Temple (Ac. xxii. 17-21) beginning of 47 
Generally connected with the first visit to Jerusalem 
(cf. Ac. ix. 26-30), but this is plainly its proper place. (1) 
The first visit was terminated not by a divine vision but 
by a Jewish plot. (2) The command that Saul should 
hasten from Jerusalem in order that he might be sent to the 
Gentiles was fulfilled not by his retiral to Tarsus (cf. ix. 
30), but by his despatch from Antioch on his first mission 
(cf. xiii. 1-3). Perhaps a confirmation is furnished by the 
textual variation in xii. 25. The situation there requires 
vTrkarp^av e£ (A Syr Bch Sah Cop Arm Mth™) or fab (DE Vulg.) 
l ltpov<ra\rjfi } * returned from Jerusalem ' ; but several im- 
portant authorities (tfBHLP Syr? iEth rom ) give ek Te/oovo-aA^, 
' to Jerusalem,' probably (cf. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 
pp. 63 f.) because the vision in the Temple was connected 
with xii. 25, and virkcrrp^av e£ (a7ro) 'lipovcraX-q/j. was then 
assimilated to viroarTptyavTi. els 'ItpovaaXrjp, (xxii. 17). 

First Mission . . . spring 47 — midsummer 49 

The Departure . . . about beginning of March 47 
It fixes the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quern that 
they sailed direct from Seleuceia to Salamis (cf. Ac. xiii. 
4, 5). (1) Navigation ceased during the winter. It became 
dangerous after the autumnal equinox and was suspended 
from Nov. n (cf. Veget. De Re Milit. v. 9) until Feb. 8 
(Plin. Nat. Hist. 11. 47). (2) On July 11 the Etesian Winds 
set in and blew unintermittently from N.W. until Sept. 14 
(cf. Plin. Nat. Hist. 11. 47), and during their prevalence 
westward-bound ships held northward and crept along 
the coast of Asia Minor by the aid of land-breezes and tides 
(cf. Strabo, 683). This was the course of the ship by which 
Paul sailed from Csesarea in Aug. 59 on his voyage to Rome 
(cf. 491) ; and so also, according to Act. Barn, (xi-xiv), 
Barnabas and Mark on their second voyage to Cyprus (cf. 
Ac. xv. 39) coasted along to Anemurium in Cilicia and then 
struck across to Crommyon. As soon as a good harvest in 
March 47 was assured, the relief -party would be free to 
return to Antioch ; and Paul would hasten to obey his call 
and set forth on his mission. 

Cyprus . March— close of June 47 
Pamphylia July 47 



* PAULINE CHRONOLOGY 649 

PisiDiAN Antioch . . beginning of Aug. — end of Oct. 47 
Paul and Barnabas arrived here early in Aug. Ere they 
began their ministry some time elapsed, long enough for its 
becoming known that they were qualified to address the 
synagogue (cf. Ac. xiii. 14, 15) — probably about a fortnight. 
The rupture with the Jews (cf. vers. 44-47) would thus 
occur on the last Sabbath of Aug., and the subsequent 
diffusion of the Gospel throughout the Phrygian District 
(cf. ver. 49) involves a considerable time, quite two months. 

Iconium ..... Nov. 47 — early summer 48 
Cf. Ac. xiv. 3 I iKavhv fiev ovv \povov SteTpufmi', ' they 
were away a considerable time/ The phrase implies a 
protracted period. Cf. p. 645. 

Lystra .... early summer—end of Aug. 48 

The appearance of the Jewish grain-merchants (cf. p. 103) 
indicates the time of departure. 

Derbe Sept. 48 — midwinter 

Return through Southern Galatia midwinter — spring 49 

Departure from Pisidian Antioch . . . spring 49 
They stayed to evangelise in the course of their journey 
through Pamphylia (cf. Ac. xiv. 25) ; and Paul, mindful 
of his previous experience in that malarial region, would 
set out in time to reach the coast and put to sea ere the heat 
of midsummer. 

Departure from Attaleia .... June 49 

Arrival at Syrian Antioch . . midsummer 49 

Peter's Visit to Antioch and appearance of Judaist Pro- 
pagandists ...... close of 49 

The historical position of Gal. ii. n ff. is much disputed. 
The decision turns mainly on two questions : (1) whether 
Gal. ii. 1-10 refers to the Council at Jerusalem (cf. Ac. xv. 
1-29) or to a previous conference during the eleemosynary 
visit (cf. Ac. xi. 29, 30 ; p. 74) ; and (2) whether Gal. ii. 
11 ff. pursues the chronological sequence so clearly indicated 
in the preceding narrative (cf. i. 18, 21, ii. 1) or introduces 
an illustrative incident which may have preceded vers. 1-10. 
Lightfoot, identifying Gal. ii. 1-10 with the Council and 
insisting on the continuance of chronological sequence, 
regards this visit of Peter to Antioch as subsequent to the 
Council and places it during the sojourn of Paul and Barnabas 
at Antioch after their return from Jerusalem (cf. Ac. xv. 
30-40). It seems incredible, however, that Peter should have 
deserted the cause of Gentile Christianity immediately after 



650 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

his advocacy of it at the Council ; and Lewin (1797) places 
the incident during Paul's stay at Antioch after his second 
mission (cf. Ac. xviii. 23, 24). Others, again, suppose that 
chronological sequence is abandoned at Gal. ii. 11, and, identi- 
fying vers. 1-10 with the Council, they regard the rencontre 
between Paul and Peter as having occurred not immediately 
before the Council but on the occasion of a visit of Peter to 
Antioch before the first mission of Paul and Barnabas, 
when he was, it is presumed, sent thither to inspect the 
original development of Gentile evangelisation (cf. Ac. 
xi. 26). This is apparently Ramsay's later opinion (cf. 
Cities of St. Paul, pp. 302 f.). The objection is that it 
supposes two distinct though precisely similar visits of 
Judaist propagandists to Antioch, one recorded by Paul 
(cf. Gal. ii. 12) and the other by Luke (cf. Ac. xv. 1). The 
identification of Paul's ' certain from James ' with Luke's 
' certain men ' who ' came down from Judaea ' claiming 
the authority of the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem, 
i.e., James and his colleagues (cf. Ac. xv. 1, 24), is reasonable 
if not inevitable ; and it establishes the view of Lake (cf. 
Earlier Epistles, pp. 293 ff.), formerly shared by Ramsay 
(cf. St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 158 ff. ; Hist. Comm. on Gal., 
pp. 304 ff.), that the chronological sequence is maintained 
throughout Gal. ii. ; that vers. 1-10 refer not to the Council 
but to a conference at the time of the famine ; and that 
vers. 11 ff. relate to the controversy at Antioch which 
occasioned the Council at Jerusalem. 

Council at Jerusalem early in 50 

Second Mission . . . . spring 50 — May 53 

Departure from Syrian Antioch . . probably Apr. 50 

The ' confirmation of the churches ' during the progress 

through the Province of Syria-Cilicia (cf . Ac. xv. 41) demands 

probably a full month, and the passage of the Taurus was 

impossible before the end of May (cf. p. 120). 

Derbe ........ June 50 

Pisidian Antioch July 50 

It was the danger of venturing into the valley of the Lycus 
during the heat of midsummer that deterred Paul from 
passing into the Province of Asia (cf. Ac. xvi. 6). Cf. p. 122. 

Troas ........ Aug. 50 

Philippi v Aug. — Dec. 50 

Thessalonica Jan.— May 51 

A considerable stay here is implied by (1) the three weeks' 
ministry in the synagogue and the subsequent evangelisation 



PAULINE CHRONOLOGY 651 

of the Gentile populace, and (2) the repeated receipt of relief 
from Philippi (cf. p. 137). 

Bercea May — July 51 

Athens Aug. 51 

Here Luke's summary narrative (Ac. xvii. 14, 15) is 
elucidated by Paul's statement (cf. 1 Th. hi. 1-6). According 
to the former it might seem as though Silas and Timothy, 
notwithstanding Paul's urgent message, did not rejoin 
him until he had left Athens and settled at Corinth (cf. 
xviii. 5) ; but neither is this likely nor is it a reasonable 
construction of the narrative. It is Luke's manner after 
intimating an intention to leave his readers to assume 
that it was carried out. Cf. his statement of Paul's purpose 
to reach Jerusalem in time for Pentecost (xx. 16). So also 
in his Gospel : contrast Lk. vii. 10 with Mt. viii. 13. It 
must therefore be assumed that Silas and Timothy responded 
to Paul's appeal and presently joined him at Athens. And 
this is attested by 1 Th. hi. 1. Luke mentions both Silas 
and Timothy, but Paul only Timothy since he is writing to 
the Thessalonians and Timothy was sent to them. The 
plurs. rjvSoKr/o-afiei', eTrcfiipafitv (1 Th. in. I, 2) imply the 
presence of Silas at Athens. This, then, is the course of 
events : (i) Silas and Timothy left by Paul at Bercea and 
instructed to join him at Athens (Ac. xvii. 15). (2) Silas 
and Timothy with Paul at Athens (1 Th. iii. 1). (3) Tim- 
othy sent to Thessalonica (1 Th. iii. 1-5) and Silas probably 
to Philippi (Ac. xviii. 5 ; Phil. iv. 15). (4) Paul removes 
from Athens to Corinth (Ac. xviii. 1). (5) Silas and Timothy 
return to Paul at Corinth from Macedonia (Ac. xviii. 5) — 
the former from Thessalonica (1 Th. iii. 6) and the latter 
probably from Philippi (Phil. iv. 15). 

Paul's stay at Athens can hardly have lasted less than a 
month in view of all that happened : (1) the return of the 
guides to Macedonia ; (2) the journey of Silas and Timothy 
to Athens ; (3) their conference with Paul and their de- 
parture again for Macedonia ; (4) Paul's inspection of the 
city > (5) his discussions, evidently frequent (cf . imper. 
StcXeyero in Ac. xvii. 17), in synagogue and market-place ; 
(6) his meeting with Stephanas ; (7) his arraignment before 
the Court of the Areiopagos. 

Corinth Sept. 51 — close of Feb. 53 

The accession of Gallio to the proconsulship of Achaia 
(Ac. xviii. 12) is an historical landmark, and its date has been 
fixed by the discovery of a mutilated inscription at Delphi. 
This is a letter of the Emperor Claudius apparently con- 
firming certain of the city's ancient privileges ; and it is 



652 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

dated by his twenty-sixth acclamatio imperatoria ([avTQKpdrwp 
r]o k$') and mentions Gallio, in official terms, as his ' friend 
and proconsul of Achaia ' ([Aovkios 'Iovjiaos Takklvv 6 

<jb[i'Aos] fiov Ka[t dvOvliraro'i [rr}<i 'Ax^'a?]). Hence the twenty- 

sixth acclamatio fell in the year of Gallio's proconsul- 
ship ; and this is determined by two data, (i) An inscription 
in the Carian city of Cys puts in the same year Claudius' 
twelfth tribunicia potestas (o-^/xapx (.*'<) efoucrta), his fifth 
consulship, and his twenty-sixth acclamatio (avroKparopa rb 
cIkoo-tov K-al cktov). (2) The Arcus Aquce Claudice is 
dated by his twelfth tribunicia potestas, his fifth consulship, 
and his twenty-seventh acclamatio. The arch was dedicated 
Aug. 1, a.d. 52 ; and thus by comparison of the Carian 
inscription it appears that the twenty-seventh acclamatio 
immediately preceded that date. Gallio assumed his pro- 
consulate during the Emperor's twelfth tribunicia potestas 
and his fifth consulship and just before his twenty-seventh 
acclamatio ; i.e., at the beginning of the proconsular year 
on July 1, 52. Cf. P.E.F.Q. St., Jan. 1908, p. 5, Apr. 1908, 
pp. 163 f. ; Ramsay, Expositor, May, 1909 ; Deissmann, 
St. Paul, Append. I. 

Ac. xviii. 11 is neither retrospective, indicating the time 
which Paul had already spent at Corinth, nor prospective, 
indicating the period between the accession of Gallio and 
Paul's departure. Vers. 1-10 relate his settlement, and 
ver. 11 states the time he spent in the city from his arrival 
to his departure. He was arraigned before Gallio soon after 
the latter's accession, probably in Aug. ; and thereafter he 
remained at Corinth -qpepas ikuio's — a vague phrase (cf. p. 645) 
denoting here some six months. 

Arrival of Silas and Timothy from Bercea . Oct. 51 

First Letter to the Thessalonians . . Oct. 51 

Second Letter to the Thessalonians . . Nov. 51 

Accession of Gallio July 1, 52 

Arraignment before Gallio . . . . Aug. 52 

Departure from Corinth . towards close of Feb. 53 

Arrival at Jerusalem .... early May 53 

The journey was protracted by (1) Paul's sickness at 
Cenchreas (cf. p. 189) and (2) the stoppage at Ephesus 
(cf. Ac. xviii. 19-21), but he would easily reach Jerusalem 
in time for Pentecost (cf. Ac. xviii. 21 T. R.), which fell that 
year on May 12 (cf. Lewin, p. 301). 

Return to Antioch . . . toward close of May 53 



PAULINE CHRONOLOGY 653 

Letter to the Galatians .... June 53 
Paul paid three visits to Galatia : (1) from Aug. 47 to 
spring 49 in the course of his first Mission (cf. Ac. xiii. 14- 
xiv. 23), (2) in early summer 50 at the beginning of his second 
Mission (cf. Ac. xvi. 1-5), and (3) in autumn 53 at the outset 
of his third Mission (cf. Ac. xviii. 23) ; and his statement 

€vr;yyeA.i(ra/x^v vfMiv to rrpoTipov (Gal. iv. 13) places the letter 

between (2) and (3) . The simple rrporcpov would mean merely 
' formerly ' (cf. 2 Cor. i. 15), but the art. marks a distinction 
between two conditions, either (1) a previous condition in 
contrast with the present (cf. Jo. vi. 62, ix. 8 ; 1 Tim. i. 13) 
or two past conditions. Had Paul been in Galatia when 

he said ivrjyytXtcrdprjv vp\iv to jrporepov, then to TipoTtpov 

would have implied only one previous visit : ' I preached 
to you on the former occasion, the last time I was here ' ; 
but since he was writing to Galatia, it implies two previous 
visits : ' I preached to you on the former of the two occasions 
when I visited you.' Hence the letter was written before 
the third visit in autumn 53. This is the terminus ad quern ; 
and it excludes both the opinions which prevailed among 
the Fathers. One, based on the fancy that the Apostle 
was a prisoner when he wrote (cf. iv. 20, vi. 17), is that the 
letter was written at Rome. Cf. subscript, in several MSS. : 
eypafyrj dnb Tw/x^s. The other is that it was written at 
Ephesus, and it has been largely approved in modern times. 
It is tenable only on the impossible assumption that Paul 
wrote the letter not during his Ephesian ministry after his 
third visit to Galatia but during his brief stoppage at the 
Asian capital in the course of his voyage between Cenchreae 
and Caesarea (cf. Ac. xviii. 19-21). Again, the terminus a 
quo is the second visit in early summer 50 ; and this excludes 
Calvin's opinion (cf. comment on ii. 1), which is not without 
recent support, that, since Paul makes no appeal in his 
anti-Judaist argument to the Apostolic Decree, the letter 
must have been written before the Council of Jerusalem 
at the beginning of 50, perhaps in the course of his journey 
from Antioch to the Sacred Capital (cf. Ac. xv. 3). It has 
been assigned also, with extreme unlikelihood, to his sojourn 
at Athens (Aug. 51), and again to his first Corinthian ministry 
(Sept. 51 — Feb. 53) ; but the probabilities point to his stay 
at Antioch in summer 53 between his second and third 
Missions and just before his third visit to Galatia. The 
evidence is twofold : (1) the certainty that he would speedily 
repair to Galatia in order to retrieve the situation (cf. iv. 20) ; 
(2) the linguistic affinity between the Galatian letter and those 
belonging to the third Mission (cf. Append. VII, pp. 688 &.), 
especially — as Theod. Mops, observes in his preface — 2 Cor. 
(cf. Gal. vi. 7 with 2 Cor. ix. 6 ; Gal. i. 6-9 with 2 Cor. 



654 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

xi. 4 ; Gal. vi. 15 with 2 Cor. v. 17 ; Gal. iv. 17, 18 with 2 
Cor. xi. 2 ; Gal. i. 10, v. 8 with 2 Cor. v. 11 ; Gal. i. 9, v. 21 
with 2 Cor. xiii. 2 ; Gal. iii. 3 with 2 Cor. viii. 6 ; Gal. v. 15 
with 2 Cor. xi. 20). And, further, it should be considered 
that Rom. is an elaboration of the argument hastily sketched 
in Gal. (cf. p. 373), and the urgent demand for an adequate 
exposition required the intervention of the least possible 
delay. 

Third Mission July 53 — May 57 

Departure from Syrian Antioch . . . July 53 

Gal ati a Aug. — beginning of Oct. 53 

Ephesus (cf Ac. xix. 8, 10 ; xx. 31) . . Oct. 53 — Jan. 56 

First Letter to Corinth (lost) . . . autumn 54 

The evidence of the writing of this letter is the Apostle's 
reference to it (cf. 1 Cor. v. 9-1 1). Two fragments of it 
survive : (1) 1 Cor. vi. 12-20. This passage is a manifest 
interpolation, alien from the passage and marring the im- 
pressive close (vers. 9-11). And the repetition of iii. 16, 
vii. 23 in vi. 19, 20 is impossible in the same letter. More- 
over, when it is recognised that vii-xvi deals with a letter 
which had just arrived from Corinth in reply to the Apostle's 
previous letter of remonstrance and which submitted to him 
a series of questions suggested by that previous letter, the 
significance of various cross-references appears. Thus (i) 
vi. 13 occasioned the question about ' things sacrificed to 
idols ' (viii-xi. 1) ; (ii) vi. 14 occasioned the question about 
the resurrection of the body (xv. 35) ; and (iii) vi. 20 
occasioned the question about slavery (vii. 21-24). ( 2 ) 2 Coy. 
vi. 14- vii. 1. This also is plainly an interpolation. Observe 
how vi. 13 links with vii. 2. Again, the Corinthians' 
wonderment at 2 Cor. vi. 14 (in previous letter) occasioned 
1 Cor. vii. 12-14 (in the Apostle's reply). 

This letter must have been written in autumn 54. When 
Paul was writing the first part (i-vi) of the ensuing letter 
(our ' 1 Cor.'), the Passover of 55, which fell that year on 
March 30 (cf. Lewin, p. 306), was approaching (cf. 1 Cor. 
v. 6-8) ; and between the two letters there was a considerable 
interval. Paul expected an answer to his first letter, and 
when none arrived, he was at length moved to write another 
by the evil report of ' the people of Chloe ' (cf. 1 Cor. i. 11). 

Second Letter to Corinth (our ' 1 Cor.') begun Feb. 55 

Paul contemplated its delivery before Passover (cf. 
v. 6-8). 




PAULINE CHRONOLOGY 655 

Arrival at Ephesus of Corinthian Deputies (i Cor. xvi. 17) 

Feb. 55 
In the early part of the letter (i-vi. 11) Paul proceeds 
upon the report of * the people of Chloe ' ; at vii. I he starts 
answering a letter just to hand from Corinth. 

The Second Letter Despatched to Corinth . June 55 
Since Paul intimates his intention of ' remaining at 
Ephesus until Pentecost,' i.e., in the year 56, the letter must 
have been despatched after Pentecost 55, which fell that 
year on May 20 (cf. Lewin, p. 306). The composition of the 
latter part of the letter would occupy a considerable time, 
involving as it did conference with the Corinthian delegates 
and careful consideration of the questions presented. 

Paul's Hasty Visit to Corinth . . . autumn 55 
The evidence of this otherwise unrecorded episode is two- 
fold : (1) In his stern letter (2 Cor. x-xiii. 10) he refers to 
the visit which he had in contemplation and which he 
actually paid (cf. Ac. xx. 2, 3), as his third visit to Corinth 
(cf. xii. 14, xiii. 1), mentioning also a second visit which he 
had paid and reiterating a threat of disciplinary procedure 
which he had then intimated in the event of continued 
obduracy (cf. xiii. 2). (2) In his glad letter (2 Cor. i-ix, 
xiii. 11-14) after the trouble was ended he refers to a painful 
visit which he had paid to Corinth — an experience which 
he had determined never to repeat (cf. ii. 1). 

This visit would involve hardly a month's absence from 
Ephesus. The wind at that season was N.W. (cf. p. 648), 
and the ship would easily fetch Cenchreae in a week. The 
return, with the wind on the quarter, would be more ex- 
peditious. 

Stern Letter to Corinth (conveyed by Titus) 

toward close of 55 
This letter Paul expressly mentions in the subsequent 
glad letter (cf. 2 Cor. ii. 2-4, vii. 8) ; and there is strong 
reason for recognising 2 Cor. x-xiii. 10 as the substance of 
it. 1. Our ' 2 Cor.' is plainly composite : it breaks in two 
between ix. 15 and x. 1. The first portion is a joyful and 
affectionate congratulation of the Corinthians on their 
repentance and reformation ; the second an indignant and 
unmeasured invective against their obduracy and insolence. 
2. The two portions are related by a nexus of cross-references. 
(1) In iii. 1 Paul protests that some personal apology which 
he has made is not a resumption of the odious business of 
' self-commendation ' : of this he has already had enough, 
and it is no longer necessary. His meaning, otherwise inex- 
plicable, appears when it is recognised that he is here re- 



656 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

f erring to his elaborate ' self -commendation ' in the previous 
stern letter (cf. x. 7-xii. 10). (2) In xiL 20-xiii. 3 he intimates 
his determination to deal severely with the impenitent 
Corinthians when next he visited them and his distaste for 
the painful duty ; and in i. 23-ii. 1 he explains that it was 
this distaste that had kept him from visiting them sooner : 
he had stayed away in the hope that they would repent and 
thus render severity unnecessary. Cf. also ii. 3 with xiii. 10 
and ii. 9 with x. 6. 

There is a suggestive passage in St. Clement of Rome's 
Epistle to Corinthians (xlvii) in the last decade of 1 c . 
Referring to 1 Cor. i. 10-17, ne sa Y s : ' Take up the letter 
(rrjv iTTLo-ToXrjv) of the blessed Paul the Apostle : what did he 
write to you at the beginning of the Gospel ? ' The natural 
inference is that Clement knew only one letter of Paul to 
the Corinthians — our ' 1 Cor. ' ; and this is confirmed by the 
circumstance that he never quotes from or alludes to our 
' 2 Cor.' The fact would seem to be that only ' 1 Cor.,' 
that elaborate discussion of universally interesting questions, 
was at the outset generally circulated in the Church ; but 
by and by, in justice to the Corinthians, the Apostle's glad 
letter of congratulation (2 Cor. i-ix, xiii. 11-14) was published, 
all the more readily that it had, by his desire (cf. i. 1), been 
originally communicated to the neighbouring churches in 
the Province of Achaia. Many references in the two letters 
were obscure to strangers, and, in order to elucidate these, 
fragments of the rest of the correspondence were inter- 
polated — two passages of the first letter (1 Cor. vi. 12-20 ; 
2 Cor. vi. 14-vii. 1) and the bulk of the third (2 Cor. x-xiii. 
10). 

Riot at Ephesus and Flight of Paul . . Jan. 56 

Troas ...... till early summer 56 

Macedonia . . early summer — beginning of Dec. 56 

Glad Letter to Corinth (2 Cor. i-ix, xiii. ir-14) Sept. 56 
It seems (cf. v. 1) that Paul wrote at the joyous season of 
the Feast of Tabernacles, which fell that year on Sept. 13 
(cf. Lewin, p. 307) 

Corinth (Ac. xx. 3) . . early Dec. 56 — early March 57 
Here the encyclical on Justification by Faith (' the Epistle 
to the Romans '). 

Departure from Corinth . . . early March 57 
Evidently Paul's first intention was to reach Jerusalem 
in time for Passover, which fell that year on Apr. 7 (cf. 
Lewin, p. 311). 



PAULINE CHRONOLOGY 657 

Philippi (Ac. xx. 6) Passover 57 

The paschal season extended from sunset (when, according 
to Jewish reckoning, the clay began) Apr. 6 to sunset Apr. 14. 

Troas Apr. 19-25, 57 

Being in haste to keep their appointment at Troas (cf. 
Ac. xx. 5) they would set out from Philippi immediately 
on the conclusion of the Feast. The passage from Neapolis 
to Troas occupied four full days (cf. Ac. xx. 6 : a\pi rjfxepuv 
irevre, where Cod. Bez. (D) has Tnfxirraloi, * on the fifth day ') ; 
and they stayed at Troas seven days, reckoning frojhi the day 
of their arrival. 



Troas to Assos (cf. Ac. xx. 7, 11) 

ASSOS TO MlTYLENE . 
MlTYLENE TO CHIOS . 

Chios to Trogyllium . . 
Trogyllium to Miletus . 



Monday, Apr. 26, 57 

Tuesday, Apr. 27, 57 

Wednesday, Apr. 28, 57 

Thursday, Apr. 29, 57 

Friday, Apr. 30, 57 



Interview with Ephesian Elders 

night of Saturday, May 1, 57 

The Elders would arrive at Miletus on the evening of 

May 1, and it appears that the interview took place by night 

since at its close ' they escorted him to the ship ' (Ac. xx. 

38), which sailed with the morning breeze. 

Miletus to Cos .... Sunday, May 2, 57 

Cos to Rhodes . Monday, May 3, 57 

Jerusalem . . . eve of Pentecost, May 27, 57 

Pentecost fell this year on May 28 (cf. Lewin, p. 311). 

Trial before Sanhedrin .... May 31, 57 

Arrival at Cesarea • • • . June 2, 57 

Trial before Felix June 7, 57 

Twelve days elapsed between Paul's arrival at Jerusalem 
and his trial at Caesarea (cf. Ac. xxiv. 11), and they are 
probably computed thus : (1) the day of his arrival at 
Jerusalem (xxi. 17) — May 27 ; (2) the day of the meeting 
of Presbytery (vers. 18-25) — ^ a Y 2 ^ ; (3) the day when he 
presented himself in the Temple with the four Nazirites 
(ver. 26) — May 29 ; (4) the day of purgation and the riot 
(ver. 27-xxii. 29) — May 30 ; (5) the day of his trial before 
the Sanhedrin (xxii. 30-xxiii. 11) — May 31 ; (6) the day 
of the conspiracy to assassinate him and his conveyance 
from Jerusalem (vers. 12-31)- -June 1 ; (7) the day of his 
2 T 



658 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

arrival at Csesarea (vers. 32-35) — June 2 ; (8-12) five days 
of waiting for his accusers (xxiv. 1) — June 3-7. 

Imprisonment at Gesarea for two full Years (Ac. xxiv. 27) 

June 57— July 59 
His imprisonment terminated on the recall of Felix and 
the accession of Festus. The external evidence of the date 
is uncertain, but it points to 58 at the earliest and 60 at the 
latest (cf. Schurer, 1. ii. pp. 182 ft.). From the narrative 
of the Book of Acts it appears to have been the year 59, 
and Festus would, in due course, assume office on July 1. 

Trial before Festus . . about the middle of July 59 

Examination before Agrippa . about the close of July 59 
After his accession on July 1 Festus stayed three days at 
Csesarea and then visited Jerusalem (cf. Ac. xxv. 1). The 
upward journe}' would take two days, his visit lasted eight 
or ten (cf. ver. 6), and the return to Csesarea would take two 
more. The day after his return Paul was arraigned before 
him (cf. ver. 6). After an interval of ' some days ' (cf. ver. 
13), perhaps two or three, Agrippa arrived at Csesarea. 
His stay lasted ' a good many days/ ttAciovs -n^epas (ver. 
14 ; cf. xxi. 10), probably a full week ; and it was in the 
course of it, probably toward the close, that Paul made his 
defence before him (cf. vers. 22, 23). 

Embarkation for Rome Aug. 59 

At Fair Havens, Crete .... early in Oct. 59 
The Fast (Ac. xxvii. 9), i.e., the Day of Atonement (cf. 
Lev. xvi. 29, 30), fell in the year 59 on Oct. 5, five days 
before the Feast of Tabernacles (Oct. 10). Cf. Lewin, 
p. 318. They left Fair Havens about the middle of Oct., 
sailed slowly westward till the gale broke, then made the 
ship snug and drifted for a fortnight ere discovering land 
(cf. xxvii. 27). 

Shipwreck on Melita . . . beginning of Nov. 59 

Departure from Melita Feb. 8, 60 

On the resumption of navigation (cf. p. 648) after three 
months on the island (cf. Ac. xxviii. 11). 

Arrival at Puteoli .... about Feb. 18, 60 

The course of some 100 miles from Melita to Syracuse 
would be accomplished in twenty-four hours ; at Syracuse 
they stayed three days ; thence it would take two or three 
days to beat up to Rhegium, where they stayed some twenty- 
four hours ; the run of about 200 miles from Rhegium to 



PAULINE CHRONOLOGY 659 

Puteoli with a fair wind took some twenty-four hours (cf. 
xxviii. 13) : in all, some nine days. 

Departure from Puteoli (cf. Ac. xxviii. 14) about Feb. 25, 60 

Arrival at Rome .... first week of March 60 
From Puteoli to Rome along the Appian Way from 
Sinuessa was about 130 miles' march. 

First Roman Imprisonment (cf. Ac. xxviii. 30) 

March 60 — March 62 

Arrival of Epaphroditus from Philippi midsummer 60 

Letter to Philippi Nov. 60 

The Apostle was a prisoner when he wrote this letter (cf. 
i. 12-14, 17), and the imprisonment in question is certainly, 
according to ancient tradition, the first at Rome and not, 
according to Paulus and a few others, the earlier imprisonment 
at Caesarea (June 57 — July 59). On the latter view iv 6 Aw 
t(i 7rpaiTU)pL0) (i. 13) would refer to ' the Praetorium of 
Herod ' (cf. Ac. xxiii. 35), the official residence of the Pro- 
curator. But ol ck Trjs KuiVapos ot/aas (iv. 22) plainly 
indicates Rome. Nor is it without significance that it is 
in the Philippian letter that the conception of the Church as 
the Civitas Dei first appears in the Apostle's thought (cf. 
p. 512). The ideal was inspired by the spectacle of the 
Imperial City. 

Arrival of Tychicus from Ephesus toward the close of 61 

Encyclical to the Churches of Asiai , , 

f Epistle to Ephesians ') I despatched about 

beginning of 62 
Letters to Colossi and Philemon j 

These three letters form a distinct group. Eph. and Col. 
were conveyed by the same messenger, Tychicus (cf. Eph. 
vi. 21 ; Col. iv. 7), and Phm. is linked to them by the cir- 
cumstance that Onesimus accompanied Tychicus (cf. Col. 
iv. 9 ; Phm. 10-12). The Apostle was a prisoner when he 
wrote all three (cf. Eph. iii. 1, iv. 1 ; Col. iv. 18 ; Phm. 
1, 9, 10, 13). Ancient tradition assigns the group to the 
Roman imprisonment, but not a few moderns (including 
Meyer and Bernhard Weiss) have referred them to the im- 
prisonment at Caesarea, chiefly on the twofold ground (1) 
that the fugitive Onesimus could more easily have fled to 
Caesarea then to distant Rome, and (2) that if the letters had 
been despatched from Rome, Tychicus and Onesimus would 
have travelled first to Ephesus en route for Colossae, and 
then the Apostle must have mentioned Onesimus in the 
Ephesian letter. But (1) Rome offered a safer refuge for the 
runaway than the provincial town of Caesarea, and, though 



66o LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

more remote, it was in fact more easily accessible whether 
by ship from Ephesus or by the overland route along the 
Egnatian Way ; and (2) Eph., being an encyclical, lacks 
all personal references. Moreover, their imperial conception 
of the Church (cf. p. 533) suggests that Eph, and Col., like 
Phil., were written at Rome. They were written after 
Phil, when the Apostle's imprisonment was nearing its end. 
His trial had been fixed, and he was confident of the issue 
(cf. Phm. 22). His acquittal was no longer, as when he 
wrote Phil, (cf . i. 20-26, ii. 24) a question but a certainty. 

Trial and Acquittal March 62 

At Ephesus ....... Apr. 62 

In Macedonia till close of 62 

At Colossi ..... early in 63 till June 

First Letter to Timothy .... early in 63 

Progress through Southern Galatia . late summer 63 

At Syrian Antioch . winter 63-64 

Mission to Gaul and Spain . . spring 64 — spring 66 

Evangelisation of Crete . . . summer of 66 

Letter to Titus late autumn 66 

Written probably from Corinth on the eve of Paul's 
departure for Nicopolis (cf. iii. 12). 

At Nicopolis winter 66-67 

Departure on Westward Mission . . . spring 67 

Arrival at Rome ..... late summer 67 

Arrest and Precognition .... Sept. 67 

Second Letter to Timothy not later than close of Sept. 67 
The letter was written during the Apostle's imprisonment 
between his precognition and his trial (cf. iv. 16, 17), and he 
urges Timothy to make haste and join him at Rome ere 
winter (cf. iv. 9, 21), i.e., before the suspension of navigation 
on Nov. 11 (cf. p. 648). Since it would take some six weeks 
for the letter to reach Ephesus and Timothy to make the 
voyage to Rome, the letter must have been written by the 
close of Sept. at the latest. The overland route from Ephesus 
to Rome took about twice as long as the direct voyage ; 
and Paul's solicitude lest Timothy should miss the last 
maritime connection shows that he contemplated an early 
martyrdom. 



PAULINE CHRONOLOGY 661 

Trial and Execution Ten Days Later 

toward the close of Nov. 67 
According to St. Jerome (Catal. Script. Eccl.) the Apostle 
was martyred in the fourteenth year of Nero, i.e., between 
Oct. 13, 67, and June 9, 68, since Nero reigned from Oct. 13, 
54, till June 9, 68 (cf. Lewin, 1802 f. y 2066). According 
to Epiphanius (Hcer. xxvn. 6), in the twelfth year of 
Nero (eVt Bo)S€ko.to> erei Ncpwvos) ; according to Eusebius 
(Chron.), in the thirteenth year. 66 is the year accepted 
by the ecclesiastical calendar, which commemorates the 
martyrdom on June 29, following here the anonymous 
Martyrium Pauli prefixed to the works of (Ecumenius. 
The chronology of the Martyrium, however, is palpably 
erroneous ; and June 29 is inconsistent with the Apostle's 
datum (cf. 2 Tim. iv. 9, 21). 



II 

THE NARRATIVES OF SAUL'S CONVERSION 

There are three narratives of Saul's conversion in the Book of 
Acts. The first the historian's (ix. 3-9) ; and the second and 
third are his own — the former occurring in his speech to the mob 
from the stairway of the Castle at Jerusalem (xxii. 6-1 1), and the 
latter in his address to Agrippa at Caesarea (xxvi. 12-18). And 
these exhibit two apparent divergences. 

1. In ix. 4 and xxii. 7 it is said that after the blaze of light 
Saul fell to the earth, whereas in xxvi. 14 it is pointedly stated 
that they all — he and his attendants — fell. The fact is that the 
whole company fell prostrate, but, whereas his attendants quickly 
recovered from their panic and arose, Saul lay still, engaged with 
the vision which was hidden from them. When all was over, he 
— not ' arose ' but — ' was raised ' (riykpdr)) by them (ix. 8). 

2. In ix. 7 it is said that the attendants ' stood mute, hearing 
the voice, but beholding no man ' ; while in xxii. 9 it is said : 
* they beheld the light, but they did not hear the voice of Him 
that talked to me.' This seems a manifest contradiction ; and 
if it were real, it would be equally serious and surprising. It 
would not merely cast discredit on the veracity of the story, but 
would convict the historian of crass carelessness. It is inconceiv- 
able that so obvious a discrepancy should have escaped so skilful 
a writer. His justification has been attempted by appealing to a 
grammatical distinction. In ix. 7 aKovetv takes the gen. (rrj^ 
<f)Oivrjs), while in xxii. 9 it takes the accus. (rrjv cjxovrjv) ; and the 
distinction is that <xkov€iv ttjv <fmtvrjv signifies to hear the voice and 
understand what is said, whereas dicoveiv rijs 4>(ovf}s is to hear 
the sound of the voice as a mere inarticulate noise without distin- 
guishing the words or understanding the sense. Cf. Grotius : 
' Sonum confuse audientes, non autem intelligentes verba.' 
Bengel : ' Audiebat vocem solem, non vocem cum verbis.' The 
distinction, however, is not strictly observed. Cf. Acts xi. 7 ; 
xxii. 7 ; Mk. xiv, 64, where in each case it would require the 

6«i 






NARRATIVES OF SAUL'S CONVERSION 663 

accus. A simple and satisfactory explanation of the apparent 
discrepancy is furnished by Chrysostom, who understands that 
the attendants heard Saul's voice (ix. 7), but they did not hear the 
Lord's voice (xxii. 9). They did not hear the Lord's question, 
but they heard Saul's answer, and they wondered at the one- 
sided conversation, as it appeared to them. ' The voice ' in 
ix. 7 does not necessarily refer to ' the voice ' already mentioned 
in ver. 4 (Blass), since then in ver. xxii. 9 there would, in view 
of ver. 7, have been no need to define ' the voice ' as ' the voice 
of Him that talked to me.' 



Ill 

PAUL'S MALADY 

What this may have been is and probably must remain proble- 
matic. All the valid evidence is furnished by two references of 
the Apostle. Writing to the Galatians in the year 53, he recalls 
the circumstances of his first appearance among them six years 
previously (cf. Gal. iv. 13-15) ; and here three facts emerge. 
1. The occasion of his visit was ' a physical infirmity/ He had 
not intended visiting them just then, but an illness had com- 
pelled him. 2. The malady was not merely distressing to him- 
self but offensive to those about him. It was ' a trial to them ' ; 
and he gratefully acknowledges how they had conquered their 
natural aversion. 3. It affected his sight, and had evoked their 
special sympathy : ' if possible, they would have dug out their 
eyes and given them to him.' 

Jerome presents four opinions apparently current in his day. 
1. The Apostle's ' infirmity ' was the rudimentary teaching 
(carnalis mei sermonis annuntiatio) which he had at the outset 
been obliged to address to the Galatians as babes unfit for strong 
meat (quasi parvulis vobis atqtie lactentibus per infirmitatem carnis 
vestrce). 2. The insignificance of his personal appearance which 
might have led them to despise his message. 3. A sickness from 
which he was suffering when he came among them and which, 
according to tradition, was severe headache (traduni earn gravis- 
simum capitis dolorem scepe perpessum). Cf. Tert. De Pudic. 13 : 
' dolorem, ut aiunt, auriculae vel capitis.' 4. The insults and 
persecutions which the enemies of the Gospel inflicted upon him 
at the beginning of his Galatian ministry. So Chrys., Theod. 
Mops., Aug. (Expos. Epist. ad Gal. 37). 

Whatever the trouble may have been, it was no temporary 
affliction ; for he refers to it eight years later (cf. 2 Cor. xii. 7) 
and shows how it had clung to him during the interval and how 
he had recognised in it a precious use. He styles it here ukoXo^ 
7rj o-apKi, and the primary question is the significance of a-i<6\o^. 

664 



PAUL'S MALADY 665 

It properly denoted ' a stake ' (stipes, sudes), especially the sharp 
stake which, in the horrible torture of impalement (<rn6\o\l'ts), was 
driven through the length of the victim's body, like a spit through 
a fish, till it emerged from his mouth. Cf . Lipsius, De Cruce, vi ; 
Sen. De ConsoL ad Marc, xx ; Epist. xiv. It is, however, in- 
credible that the Apostle should have likened his infirmity, 
whatever it may have been, to this awful agony. That would 
have been a gross exaggeration. Nor is it necessary to impute it to 
him, since in later Greek <ri<6ko\{/ denoted merely a large ' thorn.' 
Cf. JEsop. Fab. 334 (Halm), where for rbv a-KoXoira Babrius (122) 
has rtfv aKavdav. And this is the meaning of the word in LXX. 
Cf. Num. xxxiii. 55 ; Ez. xxviii. 24 ; Hos. ii. 6. 

What, then, does the Apostle mean when he says that ' there 
was given him a thorn for his flesh ' ? An enormous array of 
opinions is presented by Poole (Synops. Crit.), but these fall under 
three types. 1. ' Some bodily infirmity.' This is the earliest 
definition (cf. Iren. v. hi. 1). Presently, however, the infirmity, 
as we have seen, was specified as headache. 2. Chrys. rejects the 
tradition of headache (KecfmXaXyla), and here as in Gal. finds a 
reference to the Apostle's persecutions. 3. Misled by Vulg. 
stimulus camis mea, the mediaeval monastics supposed that it 
was the solicitation of carnal desire. Cf. Bern. De Grad. Humil. 
{prim. grad.). And this is the Roman Catholic interpretation. 
Cf. Corn, a Lap. : ' Videtur communis fidelium sensus, qui hinc 
libidinis tentationem stimulum carnis vocant.' 

On the Apostle's own testimony his infirmity was a physical 
malady ; and perhaps this is the utmost certainty attainable. 
It is regrettable that Lightfoot (Gal., pp. 186 ff.) should have 
approved the unfortunate theory that, like Julius Csesar, 
Mohammed, Cromwell, and Napoleon, Paul was an epileptic 
(cf. Ramsay's discussion in Teaching of Paul, pp. 306 ff.). It is 
a warning against rash speculation ; nevertheless the very 
antiquity of the ' headache ' tradition entitles it to consideration ; 
and what is recorded of the Apostle's malady— especially the 
circumstances of his first seizure and its frequent recurrence — 
is strongly suggestive of malarial fever. ' Every one/ says 
Ramsay in his authoritative and persuasive discussion (Hist. 
Comm. on Gal., pp. 422 ff.), ' who is familiar with the effect of 
the fevers that infest especially the south coasts of Asia Minor, 
but are found everywhere in the country, knows that they come 
in recurring attacks, which prostrate the sufferer for the time, 
and then, after exhausting themselves, pass off, leaving him very 



666 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

wea£ ; that a common remedy familiar to all is change to the 
higher lands ; and that, whenever any one who has once suffered 
has his strength taxed, physically or mentally, the old enemy 
prostrates him afresh, and makes him for a time incapable of any 
work. Apart from the weakness and ague, the most trying and 
painful accompaniment is severe headache/ 



\ 



*e~- 



IV 

LUKE AND ANTIOCH 
The tradition is that Luke was a native of Antioch. Cf. Eus. 

Hist. Eccl. III. 4 • AovKas Se to fxev ykvos &v r&v a7r' 'Avno^ctas rrjv 
8t k-!TL(T7y]^t]v larpbs rot TrXiicrra ervyyeyovios raJ TlavXto. Hieronym. 
Script Eccl. : ' Lucas medicus Antiochensis, ut ejus scripta 
indicant, Graeci sermonis non ignarus fuit, sectator Apostoli 
Pauli et omnis peregrinationis ejus comes.' It has from an 
early date been generally assumed that by Antioch was meant 
the famous Syrian capital (cf. Hieronym., Comment, in Matt. 
Prcefat. : ' Lucas medicus, natione Syrus Antiochensis ') ; and 
hence much doubt has arisen. 

The tradition has either been entirely discredited, as by Meyer, 
and ascribed to a confusion of Luke with Lucius, the prophet 
of Syrian Antioch (cf. Ac. xiii. i), or explained away, as by 
Ramsay (cf . St. Paul the Traveller, p. 389 ; Luke the Physician, 
pp. 65 ff.), who finds something singular in the phrase of Eusebius 
' being according to birth of those from Antioch/ and maintains 
that ' this curious and awkward expression is obviously chosen 
in order to avoid the statement that Luke was an Antiochian ; 
and it amounts to an assertion that Luke was not an Antiochian, 
but belonged to a family that had a connection with Antioch.' 
Ramsay's theory is that he was a Macedonian and belonged to 
Philippi. He appears, on the evidence of the first personal 
narration, in Paul's company at Troas (cf. Ac. xvi. 10), and he 
was, Ramsay thinks, the ' man of Macedonia ' who appealed 
to the Apostle ' Come over and help us ' (St. Paul the Traveller, 
pp. 200 ff.). But indeed there is nothing either curious or 
awkward in the language of Eusebius. He might have written 
' Luke being by race an Antiochene ' (to fiev yevos ©v 'Avnoxevs), 
but Antioch had furnished other notable converts, and therefore 
he wrote ' being in respect of his race one of the Antiochene group/ 

There is, however, good reason for doubting the tradition if 
Syrian Antioch be intended ; for there is not the slightest evidence 

667 



668 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

in the Book of Acts that Luke was ever connected with tha.t 
city, excepting only a curious variant in xi. 28 where Cod. Bez. 
(D), supported by Vet. It. (cf. Aug. De Serm. Dom. in Mont. 11. 

57)> has rjv St 7roAAr/ ayaA./Yt<z<x(S' (Twetxr pap. p.kvuw 8« fjfjuav erf>i] 
els i£ avrQtv ovofiart "Ayafios vrrjfiaivqiv, ' And there was much 

rejoicing ; and when we were assembled, one of them named 
Agabus spake signifying.' This implies that the historian Luke 
was a member of the Church at Syrian Antioch in the year 44, 
but it is doubtless the emendation of a copyist who shared the 
idea that Syrian Antioch was Luke's home. Since, however, 
in its earliest form as it appears in Eusebius the tradition simply 
avers that he was an Antiochene, it may very well be Pisidian 
Antioch that is intended; and this possibility is substantiated 
by the sacred narrative. 

(1) Observe the fulness and manifest verisimilitude of the 
account of Paul's first appearance in Pisidian Antioch (xiii. 14-52), 
especially the report of his discourse in the synagogue. It is un- 
mistakably the report of a hearer and one who had been im- 
pressed deeply. One evidence is the distinctively Pauline doctrine 
(cf. vers. 38, 39) ; and even more significant is the preface (vers. 
16) : ' And Paul stood up, and beckoning with the hand said.' 
There are two peculiarities here. First, the Jewish manner was 
that a preacher should sit while he addressed his audience (cf. 
The Days of His Flesh, p. 213), but Paul, as befitted the Apostle 
of the Gentiles, adopted the fashion of a Greek orator (cf. Ac. 
xvii. 22). Again, ' beckoning with the hand ' was a rhetorical 
habit of the Apostle, designed to arrest attention at the outset 
(cf. xxi. 40 ; xxvi. 1). Here also the eye-witness appears. Luke 
was present in* the synagogue, and the scene lived in his memory. 
It may be that he took down the discourse in shorthand ; for 
this is a very ancient art, having been practised in Greece at 
least as early as the fourth century. At all events Diogenes 
Laertius (11. 48) tells how Xenophon, the ' hearer of Socrates ' 
(oLKpoarrjs HwKpaTovs), ' took shorthand notes of what he said 
(v7ro<T7) fie Loxrdfiev os ra Xeyofieva) and published them under the 
title of Memoirs.' The shorthand writers were termed a-rjfieio- 
ypdfoi, 6£vypd<f>oi, or Tayyypdfyoi, in Latin notarii. The invention 
of the art was ascribed to Ennius, and it was extensively practised. 
Thus Plutarch (Cat. Min. xxiii.) explains how it came about that 
Cato the Younger 's speech at the trial of the Catilinarian con- 
spirators was, alone of all his speeches, preserved : ' Cicero the 
Consul had beforehand instructed specially swift writers in signs 



LUKE AND ANTIOCH 669 

wliich had the force of many letters in little short marks, and 
introduced them into various parts of the Senate House.' Socrates 
Scholasticus (Eccl. Hist. VI. iv.) says that some of Chrysostom's 
brilliant Homilies were ' published by himself, while others 
were taken down while he spoke by shorthand writers ' ; and 
this explains the numerous impromptus which they exhibit, as 
when he rebukes the congregation for letting themselves be 
distracted from his discourse by watching an acolyte lighting 
the church lamps. Cf. Ausonius, Epigr. cxlvi ; Becker, Gallus, 
P« 33 ; Bingham, Antiq. xiv. iv. 29 ; Milligan, N. T. Documents, 
pp. 241 ff. Peculiarly interesting in this connection is Oxvrh. 
Pap. 724. 

(2) On their return journey Paul and Barnabas visited Antioch 
and counselled their converts (cf. xiv. 21-23) ; and in reporting 
their exhortations the historian includes himself among the 
hearers by employing the first personal pronoun : they ' confirmed 
the souls of the disciples, exhorting to continuance in the Faith, 
and that through many tribulations we must enter into the 
Kingdom of God.' This may indeed be taken as an abrupt 
transition from or alio obliqua to oratio recta (cf. Moulton's Winer, 
p. 725), but it is more naturally regarded as the first of the ' we 
passages.' 

(3) When he visited Pisidian Antioch in the course of his second 
mission, Paul intended to proceed westward into the Province 
of Asia, but he was providentially prevented, probably by a 
recurrence of his malady, and travelled northward, uncertain 
where he was called to labour. At Troas the question was decided 
by the call to pass over to Europe. Luke was with him at that 
momentous crisis (cf. xvi. 10), and it is reasonable to suppose 
that he had accompanied the ailing Apostle from Antioch, or 
perhaps, since the brief record of the northward wandering is 
in the third person (vers. 7, 8), had followed him thence and 
joined him at Troas. 

(4) It is further significant that in his narrative of the Apostle's 
movements through Southern Galatia Luke displays a local 
intimacy which stamps him as a native. An apt instance is 
Ac. xiv. 6, where, relating the flight of Paul and Barnabas from 
Iconium, he says that ' they fled unto the cities of Lycaonia, 
Lystra and Derbe, and the surrounding District.' Iconium 
belonged officially to the Lycaonian District, and therefore it 
was, no less than Lystra and Derbe, ' a city of Lycaonia,' and 
when they quitted the town, they did not flee into the Lycaonian 



670 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

District : they were in that District already. This is true 
according to the imperial nomenclature ; but Iconium had 
formerly belonged to Phrygia, and its people clung to the old 
connection and still reckoned themselves Phrygians. And thus 
Luke's language here betrays his intimacy with local usage and 
his sympathy with local sentiment. He was himself a Phrygian. 
Hence it appears that the sacred narrative associates Luke 
with Pisidian Antioch and points to the conclusion that, when 
the primitive tradition makes him an Antiochene, it means 
Pisidian Antioch. This city was important in the apostolic 
period, but it quickly decayed and sank into obscurity ; and 
hence it was natural that centuries later, when Antioch was 
mentioned without definition, it should be supposed that the 
iamous Syrian capital was intended. 



/ 



THE DECREE OF THE COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM 

The authorities exhibit a radical divergence in the text both ol 
the motion of James and of the Council's resolution, i. The 
motion (Ac. xv. 20) : (1) NCEHLP, Vulg., Chrys. : t<Sv 

dXia"yyj[xdr(ov twv et'SwAwi/ /<ai ttJs iropveias Kal tov (AB om. tov) 

ttviktov Kal rov ainaros, ' the pollutions of idols and fornication 
and what is strangled and blood.' (2) Cod. Bez. (D), Iren. 
(in. xii. 17), Ambrstr. (on Gal. ii. 1, 2) omit Kal tov ttviktov, 
' and what is strangled.' 2. The decree (ver. 29) : (1) X*A*BC, 
Sah., Cop., Vulg., Clem. Alex. (Pcedag. 11. vii. 56), Orig. (In Ep, 
ad Rom. Comment. 11. 13, ix. 28 ; Contra Cels. vm. 29) : 

€i8(o\o6vt(ov Kal alfiaros Kal ttvlktmv (fc$ c A 2 EHLP ttviktov) Kal 

TTopvtlas, ' things sacrificed to idols and blood and things 
strangled (what is strangled) and fornication.' (2) Cod. Bez. (D), 
Iren., Tert. (De Pud. 12), Cypr. (Test. adv. Jud. 119), Ambrstr. 
omit Kal TTviKTuv, ' and things strangled.' 

The situation is thus that the Alexandrian and the Western 
authorities are ranged against each other ; and the difference 
between them is that, according to the former, the prohibition 
was fourfold — (1) things sacrificed to idols, (2) blood, (3) things 
strangled, and (4) fornication ; whereas, according to the latter, 
it was threefold — (1) things sacrificed to idols, (2) blood, and 
(3) fornication. Moreover, at the close of ver. 20 and in ver. 29 
after Tropveias the Western authorities generally — the one 
important exception being Tertullian — insert the Golden Rule, 

negatively expressed : Kal ocra firj Okkovcriv (OcXcTe) eavTois yiveo~0ai t 

hepois i^tj TToidv. And after TrpdgeTe (ver. 29) Cod. Bez. (D), Iren., 
Tert. add fapofievoi 4i> t<£ 'Aytw Hvev/xaTi, ' being borne along in 
the Holy Spirit ' (cf. 2 Pet. i. 21). The question is, Which of 
these versions of the decree is authentic ? There are two pos- 
sibilities : either that the clause Kal tou ttviktov (twv ttvlktwv) 
in the Alexandrian is a marginal gloss interpolated in the text, 
or that it is genuine and has been omitted from the Western text ; 
and the evidence decisively favours the former alternative. 

1. It is true that the Alexandrian reading is supported by the 
great uncials ; but it should be considered that the earliest of 

671 



672 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

these dates only from tne 4 th cent., and the Western reading is 
confirmed by Irenaeus (2 nd cent.) and Tertullian (early 3 rd 
cent.) . Nor is there lacking textual evidence that the Alexandrian 
clause kcu rod 7rva<Tov is a gloss, (i) The variant kcu ttvlktov in 
ver. 20 suggests that the simple ttvlktov was entered in the 
margin over against at'/zaros, explaining the latter in terms of the 
Mosaic precept (Lev. xvii. 10-16). Presently it crept into the 
text and kcu was prefixed to make it an article in the enumeration. 
Afterwards tov was added to bring it into conformity with the 
other clauses. Here the interpolation is seen in progress. (2) 
Though elsewhere Origen quotes the fourfold Alexandrian 
prohibition, in one instance (In Matt. Comment. Ser. 10, surviving 
only in a Latin translation) he quotes, not indeed the Western, 
but a threefold prohibition — immolatum et suffocatum et fornica- 
tionem, ' what is sacrificed and what is strangled and fornication/ 
Here ttvlktov holds the place of cu/zcn-os in the Western threefold 
enumeration, suggesting that in some Alexandrian texts the gloss 
was not interpolated but substituted. And indeed this was a 
more reasonable procedure, since on the Levitical interpretation 
ai/xaTos and ttvlktov are synonymous, both alike denoting the 
eating of flesh which retains the blood. 

2. On the assumption that the Western text is authentic the 
genesis of the Alexandrian is apparent. According to the 
Western three restrictions were imposed on the Gentile converts, 
and all three were ethical, not ceremonial. ' Things sacrificed to 
idols ' denoted the flesh of victims which had been offered in 
pagan temples and of which only certain portions were consumed 
on the altars ; and what is here contemplated is, as appears from 
the controversy which afterwards arose in the Corinthian Church 
(cf. 1 Cor. viii), the countenance which a Christian lent to idolatry 
and its attendant immoralities by participating in a pagan 
banquet, particularly when it was celebrated in an idol-temple 
(cf. p. 269). Thus the prohibition of ' things sacrificed to idols ' 
or ' the pollutions of idols ' is not a food-law but an ethical 
precept. And similarly with the prohibition of ' blood/ atfia has 
here its frequent signification (cf. Lev. xvii. 4 ; Num. xxxv. 27 ; 
Ps. li. 14 ; Mt. xxiii. 30 ; Rev. vi. 10) of • murder/ homicidium 
(Tert. Cf. Aug. Contra Faust. Munich, xxxii. 13 : ' id est, ne 
quidquam ederent carnis, cujus sanguis non est effusus. Quod alii 
non sic intelligunt, sed a sanguine prseceptum esse abstinendum, 
ne quis homicidio se contaminet/) ; and so neither is the pro- 
hibition of blood a food-law. What is forbidden is not the 



DECREE OF COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM 673 

eating but the shedding of blood. The Alexandrian corruption of 
the text originated in a natural failure to perceive the consistently 
ethical intention of the decree. It began with a narrow inter- 
pretation of ' things sacrificed to idols ' ; and the situation is 
illustrated by the subsequent controversy at Corinth. The 
flesh of the numerous temple-victims furnished the city-market, 
and the more scrupulous sort of Christians, with the decree of the 
Council in view, regarded it as unclean. Paul dealt with this 
scruple, and defined the prohibition of ' things sacrificed to idols ' 
as applying only to participation in the sacrifice. Once the 
prohibition of ' things sacrificed to idols ' had been misconstrued 
as a food-law, it was inevitable that the prohibition of ' blood ' 
should be likewise misconstrued and taken to mean not the 
shedding but the eating of blood ; and it was so defined by the 
marginal gloss ttviktov, ' what is strangled/ which by and by 
crept into the text. 

Thus the Alexandrian text was a natural and indeed inevitable 
corruption of the Western. Cf. Ambrstr. : ' Denique tria haec 
mandata ab apostolis et senioribus data reperiuntur, quae ignorant 
leges Romanse, id est, ut abstineant se ab idololatria, et sanguine, 
sicut Noe, et fornicatione. Quae sophistae Graecorum non intel- 
ligentes, scientes tamen a sanguine abstinendum, adulterarunt 
Scripturam, quartum mandatum addentes, et a suffocato observ- 
andum.' On the other hand, it is an untenable supposition that 
the Western text is a corruption of the Alexandrian, prompted by 
dislike of the food-restrictions. And that for this reason, that 
the prohibition of eating blood actually prevailed and was 
scrupulously observed in the West, particularly in Gaul and North 
Africa. Thus in the letter which the Churches of Lyons and 
Vienne addressed to Asia and Phrygia in 172, and which was 
probably written by Irenaeus, it is told how the female martyr 
Biblias answered the persecutors' charge that the Christians 
indulged in ' Thyestean banquets/ ' How/ she said, ' could such 
persons eat children, when they are not permitted to eat the 
blood even of brute beasts ? ' (Cf. Eus. Hist. EccL v. 1.) Simi- 
larly, according to Tertullian (Apol. 9 ; cf. De Sped. 13 ; De 
Monogam. 5 ; De Jejun. 4, 15), the Christians were forbidden to 
eat blood, and therefore they abstained from the flesh of animals 
which had been strangled or died naturally (suffocatis et morticinis). 
Hence so little were the Westerns likely to be offended by food- 
regulations that they would rather have been inclined by their 
actual practice to approve of these ; and their retention of the 
2 U 



674 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

threefold text constitutes a strong evidence of its authenticity. 
It would appear that there was a disposition among them to adopt 
the ceremonial interpretation ; and the addition of the Golden 
Rule and the words ' borne along in the Holy Spirit ' was doubtless 
designed to safeguard the ethical and spiritual interpretation. 

3. According to the Western text the decree of the Council was 
a courageous decision such as the crisis demanded, recognising 
the new order and making a clean sweep of the ancient and out- 
worn ceremonies. But according to the Alexandrian text it was 
a faltering compromise, meeting the Gentile converts half-way, 
releasing them from the main obligations of the Mosaic Law, 
particularly the rite of Circumcision, but requiring that they 
should propitiate Jewish sentiment b}? submitting to certain food- 
restrictions. Such a decision would have been at once futile 
and mischievous. It would have contented neither party, since 
no avoidance of unclean meats would have atoned in Jewish 
eyes for neglect of the supreme rite of Circumcision ; while the 
food-restrictions would have seemed to the Gentile converts 
ridiculous and vexatious, and they would speedily have been 
ignored. ' The Apostles,' says St. Augustine (Contra Faust. 
Manich. xxxii. 13), ' seem to me to have chosen for the time an 
easy thing in nowise burdensome to observe, that therein Gentiles 
and Israelites withal might observe something in common. But 
that time being past, what Christian now observes this rule, not 
to touch thrushes or tinier birds unless their blood has been poured 
out, nor to eat a hare if it has been knocked on the head and not 
killed by a bleeding wound ? And the few who still perhaps 
dread touching those things, are ridiculed by the rest ; so firmly 
held m this matter are all men's minds by that judgment of the 
Truth : " Not that which entereth into your mouth, defileth you, 
but that which proceedeth out " (Mt. xv. 11). ' The compromise 
would have been futile. At the best it would have established a 
short-lived modus vivendi ; and while it continued, it would have 
operated mischievously, making a cleavage in the Church and 
creating a caste-distinction. The presupposition was that the 
Jewish Christians should continue to observe the Mosaic Law in 
its entirety ; but a concession was granted to the weakness of 
the Gentile Christians. They were required to observe only ' the 
necessary things,' and thus they were recognised as an inferior 
order. And it would be amazing had a Christian Council reckoned 
among the ' things necessary ' to salvation a scrupulosity which 
our Lord had so emphatically condemned. 



VI 



THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM 



I. The Mode. — Baptism (/3a7TTi(rfx6<s, fSdirTta-fxa) is the Greek 
rendering of the Hebrew n^np which was employed of the 
Jewish ceremonial ablutions, especially the purificatory bath — the 
Baptism of Proselytes (cf . Edersheim, Life and Times of fesus the 
Messiah, Appendix xn ; Schiirer, II. ii. pp. 319 ff.) — administered 
to converts from heathenism on their admission to the Common- 
wealth of Israel. The verb ^nto signified ' immerse ' or ' dip.' 
Cf. 2 Ki. v. 14 : ' Then went he down, and dipped himself (?2W) 
seven times in Jordan.' Here the Septuagint have ZfJairTio-aTo, 
and jSarrTileLv also signified ' immerse.' It was used, for 
example, of a ship sinking in the sea. Cf. iEsop. Fab. 370 

(Halm) : rrjs veuis KivSvvevovcrrjS /SaTrTifccrdai. Jos. Vit. 3 : /SonrTL- 
crdevros yap rjfxiov rov ttXolov kclto. pecrov rbv 'ASptav. 

Immersion was thus the proper Jewish mode, but it was found 
not only difficult where water was scanty but in certain cases 
actually dangerous. It is told that in the days of R. Joshua ben 
Levi the Galileans represented that the chill was harmful to 
their women and occasioned sterility (cf. Light foot, Hor. Heb. 
on Mt. iii. 6) ; and among the Christians at all events a modifica- 
tion was certainly adopted in the administration of the Sacrament. 
They retained the method of immersion, but two others were 
recognised and practised in the primitive Church. These were 
effusion or pouring (Zkxvo-ls, effusio) and aspersion or sprinkling 
(pavria-fios, aspersio). The evidence appears on the pages of the 
New Testament, and it is this — that the sacred writers not merely 
make distinct allusion to all the three modes but unfold the 
symbolic significance of each. 

1. St. Paul plainly had the mode of immersion in view when to 
the charge that his doctrine of Justification by Faith apart 
from Works involved antinomianism he opposed the idea of a 
mystic union of believers with Christ (cf . Rom. vi. 3, 4 ; Col. ii. 12). 
Faith identifies us with Him at each stage of His redemptive 

675 



676 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

career — His Death, His Burial, His Resurrection, and His 
Ascension. And this is symbolised by our immersion in the 
baptismal water : we die with Him, are buried with Him, are 
raised with Him, and live with Him. 

This idea was afterwards quaintly elaborated. The fish (ix0«k) 
was the commonest of all the numerous symbols in vogue among 
the early Christians. It denoted Christ, inasmuch as the letters 
of lx$vs are the initials of 'I^o-ov? Xpio-ro? 0eou Yios 2io-njp, 
' Jesus Christ God's Son Saviour.' The Lord had called His 
disciples to be ' fishers of men,' catching them in the Gospel-net 
and drawing them out of the world's restless sea ; and so believers 
were termed ' fishes.' Cf. these lines in Clement of Alexandria's 
hymn at the close of the Pcedagogus : 

aXud fx € p6™v < Fisher of morta i s ^ w h om Thou dost save 

TreAdcyovs jcaKi'ac 0ut of the ocean's strife, 

IxQvs ayvovs Luring pure fish from the angry wave 

KVUdTOS C\0pOV , TT . . . , . . ... . 

x ~ ? - « x ,> With the sweet bait of life. 

The idea was naturally associated with Baptism — the immersion 
of the fishes in the water and their drawing forth, their ' catching 
for life ' (cf. Lk. v. 10). ' We little fishes,' says Tertullian (De 
Bapt. i), ' according to our Fish, Jesus Christ, are born in the 
water ' (' Nos pisciculi secundum Ix&vv nostrum, Jesum Christum, 
in aqua nascimur '). 

2. The mode of effusion also appears in the New Testament, 
and that in a singularly impressive fashion. John the Baptist 
declared that his Baptism with water unto repentance was 
prophetic of a nobler Baptism — the Messiah's Baptism with the 
Holy Spirit and with fire (cf. Mt. hi. n) ; and the Lord reiterated 
the promise at His Ascension (cf. Ac. i. 5). And how was it 
fulfilled ? On the Day of Pentecost ' there appeared unto them 
tongues parting asunder, like as of fire ; and it sat upon each 
one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit ' 
(Ac. ii. 3, 4). That was the promised Baptism ; and it is 
presently defined as an ' outpouring ' or ' effusion ' (vers. 16, 
17, 33 : eK'xew, t^kxtev). Cf. Tit. iii. 4-6. It could not have 
been thus designated unless effusion had been a recognised mode 
of administration ; and the symbolic value of this mode lies 
in its proclamation of the essential truth that the grace of the 
Sacrament is an operation of the Holy Spirit. 



THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM 677 

3. Aspersion too was a recognised mode of administration. 
Cf. Heb. x. 22 : ' Let us draw near with a true heart in ful- 
ness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled (pepavnorpivoi t<xs 
KapScas) from an evil conscience, and our body washed with 
pure water.' Here are both the symbol of Baptism (' our body 
washed with pure water ') and its spiritual counterpart (' our 
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience '). The language is 
derived from Ez. xxxvi. 25, 26, where Jerome comments thus : 
1 I restored them to their pristine glory, so that, when they 
believed and turned from their error, I might pour forth upon 
them the clean water of saving Baptism and cleanse them from 
all their abominations ; and might give them a new heart to 
believe in the Son of God, and a new spirit. And it should be 
considered that the new heart and the new spirit are given through 
effusion and sprinkling of water {per effusionem et aspersionem 
aqucz).' The closing words indicate that effusion and aspersion 
were regarded as practically identical, and from this and other 
passages (cf. Aug. Qucest. in Num. xxxiii ; Contra Adversar. 
Leg. et Proph. 11. 23) it appears that in the time of Jerome and 
Augustine effusion or aspersion was the prevailing mode of ad- 
ministration. An interesting corroboration is furnished by the 
textual variations in two passages. (1) Mk. vii. 4 : ' When they 
come from the market-place, except they wash themselves, they 
eat not.' Here the MSS. vary between jBaTrrio-mvra^ ' baptise 
(i.e., ' dip ' or ' immerse ') themselves,' and pavTio-iavrai, 
' sprinkle themselves.' (2) Rev. xix. 13, where A.V. has ' clothed 
with a vesture dipt in blood,' and R.V. ' arrayed in a garment 
sprinkled with blood.' These renderings represent different 
readings. Some MSS. have pefiappevov, ' baptised ' or ' dipped,' 
and others rrepipepappevov or pepavncrpevov, ' sprinkled.' The 
plain inference is that /tairrifciv, 'baptise,' and pairtfeiv, 'sprinkle/ 
had come to be employed as synonymous terms. 

TLo conclusion from all this evidence is that in the Apostolic 
Church the Sacrament of Baptism was administered after three 
modes—Immersion or Dipping, Effusion or Pouring, and 
Aspersion or Sprinkling. (Cf. 1 Cor. x. 2, where Aspersion 
and Immersion appear side by side.) Each was recognised as 
legitimate, and the choice was determined by considerations of 
convenience and suitability. This is borne out by the article 
on Baptism in that primitive directory, The Teaching of the 
Twelve Apostles (vii) : ' Concerning Baptism : thus baptise. 
After all this preliminary instruction baptise into the name of 



6;S LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in living (i.e., 
' running ') water. And if thou hast not living water, baptise 
into other water ; and if thou canst not do it in cold water (i.e., 
in cases of delicacy), do it in warm. And if thou hast neither, 
pour forth (€k\cov) w r ater on the head thrice in the name of 
Father and Son and Holy Spirit.' 

II. The Subjects. — The question here is whether the grace of 
Baptism be limited to persons of mature understanding, capable 
of personal faith, or extends to the children of the faithful, though 
still unconscious babes. It may seem at the first glance as though 
the testimony of the New Testament were decisive, since the 
command is ' Believe, and be baptised ' (cf. Ac. ii. 38, 41). 
But it should be considered that Christianity was then at the 
outset of its career. The message was a new thing in the 
world, and converts both Jewish and pagan were baptised on 
profession of ' repentance toward God and faith tow T ard our 
Lord Jesus Christ ' (Ac. xx. 21). So it happens still on mission 
fields, and the conditions in apostolic days were analogous. 
Moreover, the Apostles recognised that the promise was not to 
their converts alone but to their converts' children (cf. Ac. ii. 
37-39) ; and it is repeatedly recorded that they baptised not 
only their converts but their converts' households (cf. xvi. 14, 
x 5 J 2 9-34) > plainly implying that the faith of the head of the 
house availed vicariously for his family (cf. 1 Cor. vii. 14). And 
this inference is surely attested. 

1. According to Paul Baptism is ' the Circumcision of Christ ' 
(Col. ii. 11, 12). It is the seal of God's New Covenant with 
Christ and His Church as Circumcision was the seal of the Old 
Covenant with Abraham and his seed after him (cf. Rom. iv. 11). 
The New Covenant is not less but larger, wider and more be- 
nignant than the Old ; and as the children of faithful Israelites 
were comprehended in the Old Covenant and every male received 
the seal of Circumcision, so the children of believers are com- 
prehended in the New and receive the seal of Baptism. 

2. Infant Baptism was early practised, and Origen expressly 
and repeatedly affirms that it was derived from the Apostles 
(cf. Ad Rom. Comment, v. 9 ; In Lev. Horn. viii. 3 ; In Luc. Horn. 
xiv). Its legitimacy went unchallenged until post-Reformation 
da}'s, and the objection came of over-emphasis of the Lutheran 
doctrine of Justification by Faith. It is indeed by faith that we 
are saved ; but, as the Pauline doctrine of Imputation and the 
scientific law of Heredity proclaim, the efficacy of faith is vicarious 



THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM 679 

as well as personal. Christian nurture avails much. The nature 
which he inherits and the atmosphere which he breathes make a 
momentous difference to a child ; and the Christian Sacrament 
of Baptism recognises this. As a matter of fact the children of 
believing parents share the blessings of the Covenant of Grace ; 
and since they are actually in the Covenant, they receive its seal. 

3. It is frequently objected to the practice of Infant Baptism 
that, so far from being a primitive usage, it is a late outgrowth 
of the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. The Sacrament was 
conceived as not merely sealing but conferring grace ; and there- 
fore its administration was extended to infants, since they were 
doomed on the score of Original Sin, and must perish everlastingly 
if they died unbaptised. This, however, is a false reading of 
history. The idea of the regenerating efficacy of Baptism appeared 
at a very early date, and it invested post-baptismal sin with a 
peculiar heinousness, since it was nothing less than a desecration 
of the Holy Spirit's grace, and not only was it fatal to the sinner 
but it involved his sponsors in grave liability. So heavy a 
responsibility, it was felt, should not be lightly incurred ; and 
during the Middle Ages it was customary for warriors, when on 
their conversion to the Christian Faith they received the Sacra- 
ment of Baptism, to exempt their right arms from immersion in 
' the laver of regeneration/ that they might thus continue without 
sacrilege to work bloodshed and violence. But in earlier and less 
superstitious days a different device was adopted. It was the 
withholding of Baptism from infants and the postponement of 
the administration until they had passed the perilous period of 
youth with its passions and inexperience. This was advocated as 
early as the close of the second century. ' The delaying of 
Baptism,' argues Tertullian (De Bapt. 18), ' is more advantageous, 
especially in the case of little children. For what need is there 
that danger should be thrust upon the sponsors also, in that it is 
possible that they may both themselves fail of their promises by 
dying and be foiled by the issue of the child's evil disposition ? 
The Lord indeed says (Mt. xix. 14) : " Forbid them not to come 
unto Me." Let them come, then, when they grow up ; let them 
come when they learn, when they are taught whither they are 
coming; let them be made Christians when they can know Christ.' 

Thus it appears that Infant Baptism was the Church's practice 
down to the time of Tertullian, and its disuse was an innovation 
dictated by the notion of Baptismal Regeneration. Thence- 
forward the custom prevailed of postponing the administration 



680 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

until the attainment of maturity and often indeed until the 
approach of death. It was, for example, in the year 306 that 
the Emperor Constantine was converted, but it was not until his 
last illness in 335 that he submitted to the sacred ordinance 
(cf. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xx). The pious Emperor 
Valentinian 11 in like manner delayed his Baptism, meaning to 
receive it in due season ; but the hand of an assassin cut short 
his life, and he died unbaptised to the exceeding distress of his 
relatives, whom Ambrose consoled in a fine discourse, assuring 
them that the Emperor's desire for the Sacrament would be 
accepted by God as equivalent to its observance (Ambros. De 
Obit. Valent. Consol.). There is also the case of Augustine. He 
was three and thirty ere he was baptised (Confess, ix. 6) ; and 
he relates that once during his early childhood he fell dangerously 
ill, and his mother Monnica was minded to have the Sacrament 
administered to him forthwith ; but she was restrained by the 
dread of his incurring the guilt of post-baptismal sin should he 
recover. And so it came to pass that he went so long un- 
baptised, ' because after that washing there would be greater and 
more perilous guilt in the defilement of transgressions ' (Confess. 
i. 11). Cf. Reliq. Baxter. 1. ii. 6 : 'I found in all Antiquity, that 
though Infant Baptism was held lawful by the Church, yet some 
with Tertullian and Nazianzen, thought it most convenient to make 
no haste, and the rest left the time of Baptism to every ones 
liberty, and forced none to be baptized : Insomuch as not only 
Constantine, Theodosius, and such others as were converted at 
Years of Discretion, but Augustine and many such as were the 
Children of Christian Parents (one or both) did defer their 
Baptism much longer than I think they should have done. So 
that in the Primitive Church some were Baptized in Infancy, 
and some at ripe Age, and some a fit tie before their Death ; and 
none were forced, but all left free ; and the only Penalty (among 
men) of their delay was, that so long they were without the 
Priviledges of the Church, and were numbred but with the 
Catechumens, or Expectants,* 



VII 

VERBAL PECULIARITIES IN THE 
PAULINE LETTERS 

I 
The Epistles to the Thessalonians 

i. In i Th. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 

alfbi'tSios V. 3. dArj&Ss ii. 13. a/ic/xTrrcos* ii. 10, iii. 13, v. 23. 
dvafievuy* i. 10. o.TravTT)cn.$ iv. 17. diropffjavi^io* ii. 17. ap^ay- 
yeAos iv. 6. dcr<f)d\.eia v. 3. araKTOs* V. 14. yacrrqp v. 3 (also 
in quot. Tit. i. 12). eio-oSos i. 9, ii. 1. ckSiwko) ii. 15. hopKifo* 
V. 27. €^rj-^€OfJkan* i. 8. rjcrvxd^u) iv. II. OeoSiSaKTOS* iv. 9. 
Kara^toofiat i. 5. KcAerayi.a* iv. 16. /coAouaa* ii. 5. oAtyo^i'^os*" 
v. 14. 6AokA^/oos v. 23. oAoreAijs* v. 2^. ofieipofxai* ii. 8. 
offtcos ii. IO. irapapvOiopai ii. 11, v. 14. TT€piXei7rop(ii* iv. 15, 17. 
-po-d(rx w ii* IO- craivofxai* iii. 3. <rvp.<f>v\€T^s* ii. 14. Toiyapovy 
iv. 8. rpo<f>6s* ii. 7. vfipifo ii. 2. V7T€p/3au'<<) iv. 6. vTrcptK-tpuro-wi* 
v. 13. <£Ad£* i. 8. wStv v. 3. 

2. In 2 Th. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 

avaipto) ii. 8. a7rocrTaoria ii. 3. axraKTea)* iii. 7. araKrws* 
iii. 6, II. aro^o? iii. 2. Sue?; i. 9. ci Seiy/za* i. 5. €v$o£d- 
^€(T$aL* i, 10, 12. ei'Kav^ao/iat* i. 4. eVt<rrt aywyvj ii. t. Opokopai 
ii. 2. KaAo7roteti>* iii. 13. /iififofiai iii. 7, 9. irtpupyd^o pai* 
iii. II. craAeva) ii. 2. (refiacrfia ii, 4. (r^p-etoo/xat* iii. 14. nVo* 
i. 9. U7r«pau^ai'0J* i. 3. 

3. In 1 and 2 Th, and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 

KarevOvi'to 1 Th, iii. n, 2 Th. iii. 5 (only other N. T. instance 
Bcntdictu$ x Lk. i. 79). 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 



682 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

II 

Period of Judaist Controversy 

I. In Rom. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 

a/Svcrcros x. 7 (quot.). dy/neAcuos* xi. 17, 24. dSvvaros viii. 3, 
XV. I. dtSios i. 2C. cui/fO> XV. II (quot.). dtfctKOS xvi. 18. 
aKpoar-qs ii. 13. dAdAryros* viii. 26. d/AtTayd^TOS* ii. 5. afxfxos 
ix. 27 (quot.). dvdyw x. 7. dya£da> vii. 9. dvaXoyia* xii. 6. 
dva7roAdyr^Tos* i. 20, ii. I. dveXeqpHiiv* i. 31. dve^epavvrjTOS* 
xi. 33. dvBpag* xii. 20 (quot.). di/d/zws* ii. 12. dvoxrj* ii. 4, 
iii. 26. di>Ta7rdc)o^a x. 9 (quot.). avTa-KOKpivoiicu ix. 20. dvri- 
crrparevofxaL^ vii. 23. dvTiTdo-<ro/xai xiii. 2. diretOtw ii. 8, X. 21, 
xi. 30, 31, XV. 31. dirkvavri iii. 18 (quot.). diro[3o\rj xi. 15. 
aTrocrroykui* xii. 9. d7roro/zia* xi. 22. d/od* iii. 14 (quot.). 
dpidfios ix. 27 (quot ). da$kvr)iia.* XV. I. dcryris* iii. 13 (quot.). 
dvvveros i. 21, 31, X. 1 9 (quot.). dcrvvderos* i. 31. d(r\i] fiocrvvrj 
i. 27. drifid^D i. 24, ii. 23. d<f>aip€(i) xi. 27 (quot.) dcfuKveo/xai* 
xvi. 19. dxptoojAo. 1* iii 12 (quot.). ^Sekvaaofxai ii. 22. /SouArj/xa 
ix. 19. y€/xa> iii. 14 (quot.). y^won-ds i. 19. Sevpo i. 13. 
tnayyeAAou ix. 17. 8ia7ropevofxai XV. 24. Staray^ xiii. 2. Sikcuo- 
Kpt<ria* ii 5. BiKaitofia i. 32, ii. 26, ▼. 16, 18, viii. 4. SoAidw* 
iii. 13 (quot.). SovAos (adj.)* v. 19 bis. S^pr/fxa v. 16. iy^aAco) 
viii. 33. tKaTOVTaerrjs* iv. 19. ck£t]T€<d iii. Ii (quot.). Ikkcuo/zcu* 
i. 27. eKAcAdo/xou* xi. 17, 19, 20. eKKAivw iii. 12 (quot.), xvi. 17. 
iKTrzrdvvvfXL* xi. 21 (quot.). €Kxvvvofiai. v. 5. eAaia xi. 1 7, 24. 
efiTrLfjLTrXyjfxt xv. 24. €/i<(iav7]s x. 20 (quot). €j/Sikos iii. 8. 
kvKivTpLfa* xi. 17, 19, 23, 24. evTuyxdyw viii. 27, 34, xi. 2. 
iiravafiifivrjo'KU)*' XV. 15. lTravaTravop.ai ii. 17. €7rtKaAv7TT€tv* 
iv. 17 (quot.). €Tri7ri7TTU) XV. 3. em-oBla* XV. 23. ciricrrjp.o<; 
xvi. 7. 47riTi>yxdi/(t> xi. 7. sirufikpw iii. 5. iirovofid^ofxaL* ii. 17. 
epTrerdv i. 23. efavperrjS* i. 30. (ea> xii. II. ^kw xi. 26 (quot.). 
tjtoi* vi. 16. Oedofxat xv. 24. fleiOTr/s"* i. 20. #eoa"n.'y»7S* i. 30. 
Orjpa* xi. 9 (quot). tepocrvAccu* ii. 22. upovpykm* xv. 16. 
iXapoTtjs* xii. 8. lAaa-T^ptoi/ iii. 25. ids iii. 13 (quot.). KaOrJKb) 
i. 28. KaOopdai* i. 20. kcuvotj/s* vi. 4, vii. 6. KaKo^flem* i. 29. 
KaAAieAaios* xi. 24. Kardyo) x. 6. KaraKav\dofiai xi. 18 <fof. 
KaraKpifxa* v. 16, 18, viii. I. KaTaAaAos* i. 30. Karavoew iv. 19. 
Kardvvgis* xi. 8 (quot.). Ka.Tapdop.ai xii. 14. *aTacrKd7rno* xi. 3 
(quot.). Kar-qyopkni ii. 15. Kepapevs xi. 21. *Ad8os xi. 16, 17, 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 



VERBAL PECULIARITIES IN LETTERS 683 

18, 19, 21. koCtt) ix. 10, xiii. 13. kvkXo) xv. 19. Aaovy£* iii. 13 
(quot.). Aar/oettt ix. 4, xii. 1. X6.xo.vov xiv. 2. Xtf/xfxa* xi. 5. 
Acirov/oyltu xy. 27. Aoyi/co's xii. 1. Aoytov Hi. 2. Aoytoyxos 
ii. 15, /LiaTouoo/uai* i. 21. (X€[x<f>onai ix. 19. /aecrTOS i. 29, XV. 14. 
/ifraAAacraw* i, 25, 26. fxtrafcv ii. 15. pr'/iru) ix. II. prfTpu 
iv. 19. /xotx a Ai's vii. 3 foV. /aotxci'w ii. 22, xiii. 9. /aoAi? v. 7. 
vtKttw iii. 4 (quot.), xii. 21 &!r. i'o/Ao0«rax* ix. 4. ooV/yos ii. 19. 
oIk4tttjs xiv. 4. oiKOVjxkvri x. 18 (quot.). 6p.odv/xa86v XV. 6. 6/toioiu 
ix. 29 (quot.). o£vs iii. 15. o/o<:£is* i. 27. o/ot£a> i. 4. 6<f>ti\rjfia 
iv. 4. 7ratScvTrys ii. 20. 7raAatoT>7S* vii. 6. TrapaKeLpai* vii. 18, 21. 
Tra/occris* iii. 25. 7T£oas x. 18 (quot.). 7r€T€iv6V i. 23. 7rr)\6i ix. 21. 
7rioT>3S, xi. 17. TMrpdo-KiD vii. 14. irXdo-fxa* ix. 20. 71-017777/4 ii. 13. 
7tov iv. 19. Trpofiarov viii. 36 (quot.). irpoyLi/oLiai* iii. 25. 717^;- 
yivwa-Kto viii. 29, xi. 2. 7r/>o5i'5w/x<.* xi. 35 (quot.). irpof-xoLUJi* 
iii. 9. Trpoyyeopai* xii. 10. rrpodv/xos i. 15. 7rpoVoia xiii. 14. 
ir pair ar up* iv. 1. TrpoaKOTTTdi ix. 32, xiv. 21. Trp6<rXr)p.\f/<,<i k xi. 1 c. 
TT/ooo-Tans* xvi. 2. TrpocfiYjTiKOs'* xvi. 26. tttcuw xi. II. cra/3ao'i# 
ix. 29 (quot.). o-e/3a£o/Acu* i. 25. o-kAt/^ottis* ii. 5. <Ti<Xr)pv\ w 
ix. 18. o-kotL(oll<u i. 21, xi. 10 (quot.). o-rei/ay/uo? viii. 26. 
crvyycyT/s ix. 3, xvi. 7, II, 21. a-v/n-fSovkos* xi. 34 (quot). qtvlk^vto^* 
VI. 5. cri>vaya)n£b/xcu* XV. 30. crvvavaTrai'o/xai^ xv. 32. o^'i- 
avTiXaLifidvopat, viii. 26. o-uySo^a^co* viii. 17. cri'i/T/So/xcu* vii. 22. 
<rwKa/i,7TTto* xi. IO (quot.). (Tvvixaprvpeoj* ii. 15, viii. 16, ix. 1. 
crvv'TrapaKakiOfxai* i. 12. avi/o-Teva^a)* viii. 22. (rvvcrx r ) Ll<XT ^C f iai 
xii. 2. crwTeAew ix. 28 (quot.). trvvTefxvaj* ix. 28 (quot.). avv- 
Tpifiu} xvi. 20. rrvvrpifxLLa* iii. 16 (quot.). crvv^ixi* vii. 16. 
arui/wSu'to* viii. 2 2. cr<f>ayrj* viii. 36 (quot.). TaXanriopia iii. 16 
(quot.). TaAcuVo;/3os vii. 24. T<x(f>o<i iii. 13 (quot.). reT/mTrms 
i. 23. ToXpYjpoTcpios* xv. 15. rpa^riAos xvi. 4. tu</>Aos ii. 19. 
VJravS/oos* vii. 2. i>7r£p€VTuyxara>* viii. 26. virepviKaa)* viii. 37. 
v7re/></>/3oi ecu* xii. 3. wryos xiii. II. v7t6cUkos* iii. 19. viroXeipixa* 
ix. 27 (quot.). viroXiCrropaL* xi. 3 (quot.). <jid(TK(i} i. 22. <£iAo- 
£«i'ia xii. 13. t^iAocrrooyos* xii. 10. <f)ov€v<» xiii. 9 (quot.). <f>6ro$ 
i. 29. <£o/dos xiii. 6, 7. <f>p6vr}fxa viii. 6, 7, 27. (j>vpa/xa ix. 21, 
xi. 16 (also in proverb 1 Cor. v. 6, Gal. v. 9). <£vo-ikos i. 26, 27. 
Xpiiparifo, vii. 3. xprjixaTtarjxos* xi. 4. xprio-ToAoyia* xvi. 18. 
xJ/tvaLia* iii. 17. \J/iOvpi<TTri'i* i. 30. to/ocuos X. 15 (quot). (Wet 
vi. 13. w^fAeta iii. 1. 

2. In 1 Cor. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 
aya/Aos* vii. 8, II, 32, 34. dyevrjs* i. 28. dyvaxria xv. 34. 
uyo/>afw vi. 20, Vii. 23, 30. aScurayos* ix. 1 8. aSriAos xi. 8. dSrjAtos* 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 



68 4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

ix, 26, a£vjj.Q$ v. 7, 8. awiyjAa* xiii. 12. dKaraKakv^ros* 
x ^ 5? *3- o.KoXovdkm x, 4. diepaala vii. 5. dxwv* ix. 1 7. 
dAaAd£w xiii. I. afxepipvos vii. 32. dpuraKivrjToi* XV. 58. a/Z7T€Auiv 
ix. 7. dvd vi. 5, xiv. 27. dva KpLvio ii. 14, 15 bis, iv. 3 for, ix. 3, 
x. 25, 27, xiv. 24. dvdixvqvis xi. 24, 25 (quot. from Evangelic 
Tradition). dvdgios* vi. 2. di'a£uus* xi. 27. avfyn^o/uai* xvi. 13. 
dvriXijpwpi^ xii. 28. arrays xii. 2. u7r€A€v#€/>os* vii. 22. arc- 
ptGnrdcrruii* vii. 35. dn-(X>«t£is* ii. 4. d7roAovw vi. II. dvotfyepu) 
xvi. 3. dpyvpiov iii. 12. dporptdu) ix. IO. dpira£ v. 10, II, vi. 10. 
appuwTGS xi. 30. d/j^tTfKTWf* iii. 10. do-TaTew* iv. 11. tttrr>J/c> 
xv. 41. do-^iy/xoifO)* vii. 36, xiii. 5. do-^^wi'* xii. 23. uti/jios 
iv. 10, xii. 23. dro/jurs* xv. 22. avXkofxai xiv. 7. avAos* xiv. 7. 
avpiov xv. 32 (quot.). d<£ttH'os xii. 2, xiv. 10. d\fvxo , i* xiv. 7. 
/3itoTiKo$ vi. 3, 4. jSpo^os* vii. 35. ydAa iii. 2. yapifo 
vii. 38. yeiopyiov* iii. 9. yoyyv£w x. 10. ypa^arevs i. 20. 
-yv/Ai'iTeiJto* iv. 11. 8turve(o xi. 25. St; vi. 20. Siatpeons* xii. 4, 
5, 6. cueu/oew xii. II. StSaKrd? ii. 13. Bt€pp.rjviVTrj<i (v. 1.)* 
xiv. 28. 8upp.r)i'€vu> xii. 30, xiv. 5, 13, 27. Sid7re/>* viii. 13, x. 14. 
ot\pd<a iv. 11 (also in quot. Rom. xii. 20). SouAayioyeto* ix. 27. 

8pdcrarop,aL*~ iii. 19 (quot.). SvcrffarjLLeu* iv. 1 3. Sa>8c/va (01) XV. 5. 
edw x. 13. kytcpa.Ttvop.u.i* vii. 9, ix. 25. ciSwAioy* viii. 10. 
«uSa>Ao#irros viii. 1, 4, 7, 10, x. 19. €iVokovw xiv. 21 (quot.). 
ttcfiaais x. 13. €KO€\op.aL xi. 33, xvi. 11. (KkotttJ (v. 1. cyKOTny)* 
IX. 12. (Ki>rj(f>(t)* XV. 34. tK7T€ipd^io x. 9. exT/)(!>jUa* XV. 8. eAcciyo's 
xv. 19. tvepyrjfxa* xii. 6, io. €i>vo/xo? ix. 21. eyoxos xi. 27. 
€VT/3o;nj* vi. 5, xv. 34. igaipu* v. 13 (quot.). i^€y€tp(o vi. 14 
(also in quot. Rom. ix. 17). e£ovo-id£u) vi. 12, vii. 4 £«. coprdfo* 
v. 8. eirdvoi xy. 6. inepwTdw xiv. 35 (also in quot. Rom. x. 20). 

C7Ti/5dAAo.» Vii. 35. tTTlOaVaTLOS* IV. I9. €7Tt#L>/Z 777-77$* x. 6. 

€7TLK(ip.ai ix. 16. 67Ti<r7rdoynat* vii. 18. l/077/xos x. 5 (also in quot. 
Gal. iv. 27). kpp.'qvia* xii. 10, xiv. 26. Icrompov xiii. 12. ere- 
/ooyAoo-o-os* xiv. 21 (quot.). evycv^s i. 26. tvKaipao xvi. 12. 
ciVd/DeSpos* vii. 35. «iVt7/zos* xiv. 9. €v<r\rjLLoarvvrj* xii. 23. 
cvcrx'^w^ vii. 35, xii. 24. rytfos* xv. 33 (quot.). rjxcu)* xiii. 1. 

BdlTTOJ XV. 4. 6>ipiOp.a)(€Ui* XV. 32. i'a/AGt* Xii. 9, 28, 30. t€(0O#lTOs* 

x. 28. tepov ix. 13. iva rt x. 29. l^Ov^ xv. 39. kcuw xiii. 3. 
KaAd/iT7* iii. 12. KaAvTrrw iv. 3. KaraKaiu) iii. 15. /caTaK-aAv7r- 
TOfxaL* xi. 6 ^/V, 7. AcaTa/jt€i'ta (#. 1.) xvi. 6. Karacrrpuivvvpu.* x. 5. 
Karax/odo/jiGu* vii. 31, ix. 18. kci/>w xi. 6 &V. Kivrpov xv. 55 and 
56 (quot.). Ktjpom* ix. 9 (quot.). Kiddpa xiv. 7. mdapifa xiv. 7. 
KtvSvvtvw xv. 30. K-Adtu x. 16, xi. 24 Mr. kokkos xv. 37. Ko/udw* 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 



VERBAL PECULIARITIES IN LETTERS 685 

xi. 14, 15. kofirj* xi. 15. Koptvvvfit iv. 8. KpiTijptov vi. 2, 4. 
KTrjvos XV. 39. Kvf3epvr]<ris* xii. 28. KvpfiaXov* xiii. I. KvpiaKos 
xi. 20. Aoym* xvi. 1, 2. AoiSopcoj iv. 12. \0180pos* v. 11, vi. 10. 
Avert?* vii. 27. paivopai xiv. 23. /JtaKcAAov* x. 25. /wAoko? vi. 9. 
fiapdva Bd (fxapdv add)* xvi. 22. fi($v<ro<i* v. It, vi. ro. pti(ts>v 
xii. 31, xiii. 13, xiv. 5 (also in quot. Rom. ix. 12). pcAct vii. 21, 
ix. 9. p€T€\(a ix. 10, 12, X. 17, 21, 30. jat/vvw x. 28. prfTiyt* 
vi. 3. /toco's vi. 9. fioXvvu) viii. 7. pvpios iv. 15, xiv. 19. pu>pia* 
i. 18, 21, 23, ii. 14, iii. 19. yi?* XV. 31. vrjTridfa* xiv. 20. vikos* 
xv. 54, 55, 57 (quots.). ^vpdopac xi. 5, 6. 6\o$pevrrjs* x. 10. 
oAws v. 1, vi. 7, xv. 29. 6/xiAto* xv. 33 (quot.). ocraKis xi. 25. 
<kr<f>pr)cri.s* xii. 1 7. oueu ix. 1 6. ovoeVoTC xiii. 8. ovs xii. 16 (also 
in quots. ii. 19, Rom. xi. 8). o<i>eAos xv. 32. iraiSiov xiv. 20. 
7rcu£<o* X. 7 (quot.). TTavra\ov iv. 17. 7rapaya> vii. 31. Trapapvdia* 
xiv. 3. 7ra/3e<$/m5o>* ix. 13. TrapoSos* xvi. 7. irapo^vvopat xiii. 5. 
Tracrxo- V. 7. 7ra0ds* ii. 4. 7rei'T)/KO(r-nj xvi. 8. trtpidyia ix. 5. 
7repi/3oAcuoi/* xi. 15 (also in quot. Heb. i. 12). nepiKaOappa^ iv. 13. 
iT€ptTidr)pu xii. 23. 7rept\f>)pa* iv. 13. 7r€p7r€p€vo/xai* xiii. 14. 
vtrpa x. 4 foV (also in quot. Rom. ix.33). rtu^w xi. 32. -AeFcrTos 
xiv. 27. rrv€vpa7iKws ii. 13 (v. 1.), 14. iroipaivio ix. 7. nolpv-q 
ix. 7 foV. 7ToA€/aos xiv. 8. 7rd/za x. 4. Tropvivu) vi. 18, x. 8. -rropvt) 
vi. 15, 16. norr)piov x. 16, 21, xi. 25, 26, 27, 28. troTt^o iii. 2, 6, 
7, 8, xii. 13 (also in quot. Rom. xii. 20). rrpoo-Kweoy xiv. 25. vpo- 
cf>^T€voi xi. 4, 5, xiii. 9, xiv. i ? 3, 4, 5, 24, 31, 39. jttijvos* xv. 39. 

7TVKTCVU}* IX. 26. T(i)AeU) X. 25. pdf38o<i IV. 21. /Wry* XV. 52. 

<raA7ri£w xv. 52. crcA^V^ xv. 41. <titos xv. 37. o-ra8/.oi' ('race- 
course')* IX. 24. eriyx/?auo> x. 11. avp(f)Opos* vii. 35, x. 33. 
arvp.<f)iovos* vii. 5. <riWyo> v. 4. {rvvyvu>p.i)* vii. 6. vvvoiSa iv. 4. 
crviepxopa.1 xi. 17, 18, 20, 33, 34, xiv. 23, 26. ctvi/ctos i. 19 (quot.). 
a-vvfarrjTrjs* i. 20. crvvrjdeia viii. 7, xi. 1 6. o-vvxtpavvvpi xii. 24. 
o-vvpapi^opai* ix. 13. crvi(TTeAA(o vii. 29. (rxicrpa i. 10, xi. 18, 
xii. 25. crxoAa^w vii. 5. ray/xa* xv. 23. Ti]pr)<ris vii. 1 9. ti/aios 
iii. 12. toiVvv ix. 26. Tpdirefa x. 21 (also in quot. Rom. xi. 9). 

TV7TIKIOS* X. II. TV7rT€ll' Viii. 12. VTT€pa.Kp.O<s* V\\. 36. V7rr)p€T1)<S 

iv. 1. VTrocrTacrts ix. 4, xi. 17. v7rto7rKx£(o ix. 27. <£iAov€ikos* xi. 16. 
<f>pyjv* xiv. 20 £*V. ^>vt€uw iii. 6, 7, 8, ix. 7. x a ^ K ° s xu ^ *• 
^oi-Kos* xv. 47, 48, 49. \6pTos iii. 12. xpr)<TTcvopai* xiii. 4. 
xJ<€vSopdpT%>s xv. 15. ^u^tKos ii. 14, xv. 44 foV, 46. i/'vxos xi. 26. 
rf'inpifo* xiii. 3 (also in quot. Rom. xii. 20). oV:r«p€i* xv, 8. 

3. In 2 Cor. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 

dfiapri$* xi. 9. dyaiaKT^trts* vii. II. aytorijs v. 12. dyvdrqs* 

* Nowhere else in N. T, 



686 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

vi. 6, xi. 3. dypvrvia* vi. 5, xi. 27. dSporrjs* viii. 20. act 
iv. 11, vi. 10 (also in quot. Tit. i. 12). a A. A.' 17 i. 13. apeTpos* 
x. 13, 15. ai/ayycAAcu vii. 7 (also in quot. Rom. xv. 21). dva- 
KaXviTTio* iii. 14, 18. dv€K8iijyr)Tos* ix. 15. dirapaa-Kivatiros* 

IX. 4. anti-nov* iv. 2. drroKptpa* i. 9. a7rora0"o-op;cu ii. 13. 
dpio-Tcpos vi. 7. dpp.6£op.au* xi. 2. apprjTOS* xii. 4. ap^aics 
v. 17. apx 10 "^ z (also in quot. Rom. xv. 12). drcv t£a> iii. 7, 13. 
auya(V* iv. 4. avdaiptTOS* viii. 3, 1 7. d^poavvr) xi. I, 17, 21. 
f3apvs (quot. of Corinthian criticism) x. 10. BeAiap* vi. 15. po-qBkm 
vi. 2 (quot.). /3ovX.evofxat i. 17. fivdos* xi. 25. ykviqpa ix. IO. 
6a7ravaw xii. 1 5. 8i\fo<i* xi. 27. SoAow* iv. 2. 80x775* ix. 7 
(quot.). 6W<£r7/xia* vi. 8. kOvdpyr)** xi. 32. cio-Sexo/xat* vi. 1 7 
(quot.). (KSoiTravdo pai* xii. 1 5. tKO^/xeu)* v. 6, 8, 9. ckSuw v. 4. 
€K<j6o/3€a>* x. 9. eAaTToi/c'w* viii. 1 5 (quot.). fkacppia* i. 17. 
IAa<ppo? iv. 17. evypdcfaopat iii. 2, 3. erSryjueoj* v. 6, 8, 9. tVKpivoi* 

X. 12. «v7r*/K7raT€a>* vi. 16 (quot.). Iv-ruTTou* iii. 7. i^airopeopat* 
1. 8, iv. 8. e£i(TTripi v. 13. €7raKovu>* vi. 2 (quot.). CTrci/Svo/jtai* 
V. 2, 4. eirteiKia x. I. €7ri7ro#?;cris* vii. 7, 11. cTricrKTjvoo)* xii. 9. 
€7Tio-Tao-is xi. 28. eVtrt/xta* ii. 6. eprjpia xi. 26. ecrw^ev vii. 5. 
€T€/>o£i/yea>* vi. 14. crot/xws xii. 14. €v<£??tua* vi. 8. cvfypalvio 
ii. 2 (also in quots. Rom. xv. 10, Gal. iv. 27). k^iKvkopai* x. 13, 14. 
ySeus xi. 19, xii. 9, 15. ^i/t/ca* iii. 15, 16. ^rrao/xat xii. 13. 
Oappeio v. 6, 8, vii. 16, X. I, 2. Oavpa xi. 14. Ovydrrjp v. 18 
(quot.). ^vyns xi. 33. ik<ik3t?7s* iii. 5. lAapos* ix. 7 (quot.). 
Ka&u'peo-is* X. 4, 8, xiii. IO. KaBaipea) x. 5. Kaduxnrep iii. 18. 
tcd.\vp,fia* iii. 13 (quot), 14, 15, 16. Ka.7rr)\evio* ii. 17. Kara/3dXko) 
iv. 9. Kara/3ap€<y* xii. 16. Hard k pur is* iii. 9, vii. 3. jcaraAaAia 
xii. 20. Karai/ap/caw* xi. 9, xii. 13, 14. KaraTrlvm ii. 7, v. 4 (also 
in quot. 1 Cor. xv. 54). /caTaprio-is* xiii. 9. Karo7rrpi^opai* iii. 18. 
Aap,7ra> iv. 6. krjcrTrjS xi. 26. Ai#a£a> xi. 25. Aiflivos iii. 3. pkkav 
iii. 3. pkptpva xi. 28. perapkkopai vii. 8. /Licravoew xii. 21. 
ptroxri* vi. 14. perpka) x. 12. piKpov xi. I, 16. pokvcrpos* vii. I. 
ptopdopuxL* vi. 3, viii. 20. vr/(TT€ta vi. 5, xi. 27. vvY^ucpov* xi. 25. 
oSotTropta xi. 26. oSvp/xos* vii. 7 (also in quot. Mt. ii. 18). 01**7- 
T-tjpcov v. 2. OTVTacrio. xii. I. o^vpoj/xa* x. 4. 7raAat xii. 1 9. 
Trai/oGpyos* xii. 16. iravTOKpanop vi. 1 8 (quot.). TrapaSetcros xii. 4. 
7rapavTiKa* iv. 17. 7rapacf>povk(D* xi. 23. 7rapeKTOS xi. 28. irapkp- 
yppai v. 17. Treves* ix. 9 (quot.). -eptatpew iii. 16. rrepiacrevpa 
viii. 13, 14. TTipva-L* viii. 10, ix. 2. 7rAa£ iii. 3. TrAaTvvcuvi. 11, 13. 
irA^yrj vi. 5, xi. 23. 7rA>7#iJi/a> ix. IO. Trorapos xi. 26. irpoaipkopbai* 
ix. 7. Trpoapaprdvo)* xii. 21, xiii. 2. 7rpo€vdp\opai* viii. 6, IO. 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 



VERBAL PECULIARITIES IN LETTERS 687 

Trpo€pxofJ.at ix. 5. TrpoOvfjiia viii. II, 12, 19, ix. 2. 7rii0Ka.T0.pTi fa* 
IX. 5. 7rp6i<€ifxai viii. 12. 7rpocrava7rAr/pG to* ix. 12, XI. 9. TrpSarKatpos 
iv. 18. rrpocrKoirq* vi. 3. irrutxeia viii. 2, 9. 7rT<ox*uu>* viii. 9. 
pa/38[fo xi. 25. orapydn}* xi. 33. crrjp.cpoi' iii. 14, 15 (also in 
quot. Rom. xi. 8). o-k^j/os* v. i, 4. o-koXo^* xii. 7. a-KopTrtfa 
ix. 9 (quot.). apropos ix. 10. tr7rov<$ouos* viii. 17, 22. crT€vo\u)- 
pkopai* iv. 8, vi. 12. o-rparta x. 4. trvAdto* xi. 8. trvp^toV^cris* 
vi. 15. (rvva7ro(rT€AAw* xii. 18. o~vv€K8r][xo<s viii. 19. <rwKaTc£0eais* 
vi. 16. crvvo\ij ii. 4. crw7r€p:3r(o* viii. 18, 22. crvvvirovpykin* i. 11. 
crucrraTiKos* iii. 1. T€i^os xi. 33. T-qXiKovTos i. 10. rpi's xi. 25, 
xii. 8. rv(f)\6tii iv. 4. vfSpis xii. 10. u7r«p* xi. 23. v7T€p/3aAAdvT<os* 
xi. 23. V7repe/ceu'a* x. 16. VTrepeKTei'vio* x. 14. turcpAiav* xi. 5, 
xii. 11. v\poui xi. 7. (/^iSopevtos* ix. 6 (proverb). <p#dyyos* x. 10 
(also in quot. Rom. x. 18). cf>v\aKi) vi. 5, xi. 23. <£wiWts* xii. 20. 
<{><x)ti(tii,6s* iv. 4. x a ^ w x i« 33- x €L P OTOV * Ui vm « I 9- X°P r iy* <a 
ix. 10. X/° ia> *• 2I - x^P* * v & 2 « j/'evSawoo-ToAos* xi. 13. 
\pidvpL<rfx6<i* xii. 20. 

4. In Gal. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 

"Ayap* iv. 24, 25. aKvpoa) iii. 17. dAAryyopeoj* iv. 24. dvao-Ta- 
tou> v. 12. avaTiOi/xai ii. 2. dvepxopiaL i. 17, 18. dvcotfey iv. 9. 
ajroKOTTTco v. 12. apa ii. 17. (3acn<aivio* iii. 1. /i/odw iv. 27 (quot.). 
SttKvgj* v. 15. BiafX€V(o ii. 5. ey/cpaTCia v. 23. €#yi/<ws* ii. 14. 
etKto* ii. 5. €K/3dAAw iv. 30 (quot.). eKXvopat vi. 9. Ik7ttv<o* 
iv. 14. tfxpeva) iii. 10. cvtvAoyeopcu iii. 8 (quot.). Ivmivtos iv. 10. 
!£oupca> i. 4. €^a7roa-T6AAa) iv. 4, 6. e£opvara(D iv. 1 5. €7riSia- 
Tacro-op,ou* iii. 15. !7rtKaTapaTos* iii. 10 (quot.), 1 3 (quot.). 

€7TiTp07TOS iv. 2. €t>0e(z>S i. l6. €V7TpQCTlD7r€U)* VI. 12. tS« V. 2. 

ioi;8ai£to* ii. 14. iouSgukgjs* ii. 14. tovSaicrpvds* i. 13, 14. Icnopkio* 
i. 18. KaTayivwaKco ii. 11. Kardpa iii. 10, 13. /caTao-K07reco* 
ii. 4. Kev68o£os* v. 26. Kpepdi'vvpu iii. 13 (quot.). p;€Tao-Tp€</>oj 

i. 7. [XiTaTldrjpLL i. 6. p^f iv. IO. flOpqiOOfAdl* iv. I9. pLVKTT)- 

pi^ofiaL* vi. 7. Ofxoios V. 2. op#07roS€a>* ii. 14. TruiSicrKr) iv. 2 2. 
23, 30 £«• (quot.), 31. 7rapar^p€a> iv. 10. 7rapeicraKT0S* ii. 4. 
7rarptKds* i. 14. Treur LLovrj* v. 8. tt-qXIko^ vi. II. iropdkos i. 13, 23. 
wpoctSov iii. 8. 7rpoeuayy€Ai£op,Gu* iii. 8. Trpodecrp.ia* iv. 2, 
irpoKaXkoLLai* v. 26. irpoKvpoofiai* iii. 17. TrpowavaTidefxai* i. 16, 
ii. 6. irpocTTidr)p.i iii. 19. p-qyvvpi iv. 27 (quot.). crmpos iv. 27 
(quot.). aTtypxjL* iv. 17. o-vvryAc/awT^s* i. 14. crvvirap(iXajx(i6.voi 
ii. I. crvKTroixea)* iv. 25. avvvTroKpivofxai* ii. 13. Tapdtrcrw 
i. 7, v.. 10. TCK^tov (v. 1.) iv. 19. TiKTw iv. 27 (quot.). vrroo-TeAAw 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 



688 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

M. 12. VTTO(TTp€(filM i, I^. (ftappaKia V. 20, <£0O1>€U> v. 26. <j>OpTiQV 

¥1 5, <£/)evaraTdco* vi. 3, wSfrtu iv. 1 9, 27 (qilOt.). 

5. In two or more of the group and nowhere else in Pauline 
Epistles : — 
; A/?/3a Rom. viii. 15, Gal. iv. 6. 'Aftpadp. Rom. iv. 1, 2, 3 (quot.), 

9, 12, 13, 16, ix. 7, xi. 1, 2 Cor. xi. 22, Gal. hi. 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 16, 18, 
29. aSiKos Rom. hi. 5, 1 Cor. vi. 1, 9. aipio-is 1 Cor. xi. 19, 
Gal. v. 20. ttKdTcurrao-ia 1 Cor. xiv. 33, 2 Cor. vi. 5, xii. 20. 
aAAao-creu' Rom. i. 23, I Cor. xv. 51, 52, Gal. iv. 20. apdpTrjpa 
Rom. iii. 25, 1 Cor. vi. 18. dperapeXriTos* Rom. xi. 29, 2 Cor. vii. 

10. dvayKa£u) 2 Cor. xii. n, Gal ii. 3, 14, vi. 12. dvddtpa Rom. 
ix. 3, 1 Cor. xii. 3, xvi. 22, Gal. i> 8, 9. a*>0pw7rii/os Rom. vi. 19. 
1 Cor. ii. 13, iv. 3, x. 13. avrt/ua-flia* Rom. i. 27, 2 Cor vi. 13. 
aTcepxpiiai Rom. xv. 28, Gal. i. 17. drroXoyiofiat Rom. ii. 15, 2 Cor. 
xii. 19. aTrop€(o 2 Cor. iv. 8, Gal. iv. 20. drroa-roX^ Rom. i. 5, 

1 Cor. ix. 2, Gal. ii. 8. dpcrrjv Rom. i. 27 bis, Gal. iii. 28. dfyiqpt. 
Rom. i. 27, iv. 7 (quot), 1 Cor. vii. 11, 12, 13. dfyopifja Rom. i. 1, 

2 Cor. vi. 17, Gal. i. 15, ii. 12. /Sarrri^w Rom. vi. 3 bis, 1 Cor. i. 
13, 14, 15, 16, 17, x. 2, xii. 13, xv. 29 bis, Gal. iii. 27. j8ao-ra(w 
Rom. xi. 18, xv. 1, Gal v. 10, vi. 2, 5, 17. pepatos Rom. iv. 16, 
2 Cor. i. 7. prjpa Rom. iv. 10, 2 Cor. v. 10. yvpvos 1 Cor. xv. 
37, 2 Cor. v. 3. yvpi'OTYfs Rom. viii. 35, 2 Cor. xi. 27. Sipio 
1 Cor. ix. 26, 2 Cor. xi. 20. SrjXos 1 Cor. xv. 27, Gal. iii. n. 
SidKptvia Rom. iv. 20, xiv. 23, 1 Cor. iv. 7, vi. 5, xi. 29, 31, xiv. 29. 
SiaKpxris Rom. xiv. 1, 1 Cor. xii. 10. Siao-ToA?}* Rom. iii. 22, x. 12, 

1 Cor. xiv. 7. Supxopai Rom. v. 12, 1 Cor. x. 1, xvi. 5, 2 Cor. i. 
16. Stxoo-Tao-ia* Rom. xvi. 17, Gal. v. 20. SovXcla Rom. viii. 15, 

21, Gal. iv. 24, v. 1. Bwarto}* Rom. xiv. 4, 2 Cor. ix. 8, xiii. 3. 
tiXtKpivta* 1 Cor. v. 8, 2 Cor. i. 12, ii. 27. tio-kpxopai Rom. v. 12, 
xi. 25, 1 Cor. xiv. 23, 24. ckSikcw Rom. xii. 19, 2 Cor. x. 6. 
eKfcAetV* Rom. iii. 27, Gal. iv. 17. ckkoVtw Rom. xi. 22, 23, 2 Cor. 
xi. 12. iKTriVrtt) Rom. ix. 6, Gal. v. 4. «wv* Rom. viii. 20, 1 Cor. 
ix. 17. iXtvdepia Rom. viii. 21, 1 Cor. x. 29, 2 Cor. iii. 17, Gal. ii. 
4, vi. 13. tXevdepoto Rom. vi. 18, 22, viii, 2, 21, Gal. v. 1. h>ci<ev 
Rom. viii. 36 (quot), xiv. 20, 2 Cor. iii. 10, vii. 12. e^to-riv 1 Cor. 
vi. 12, x. 23, 2 Cor. xii. 4. iiraivku Rom. xv. n, 1 Cor. xi. 2, 17, 

22. ivei Rom. iii. 6, xi. 6, 22, 1 Cor. v. 10, vii. 14, xiv. 12, 16, 
xv. 29, 2 Cor. xi. 18, xiii. 3. ipavvdu) Rom. viii. 27, 1 Cor. ii. 10. 
evoSoopat Rom. i. 10, 1 Cor. xvi. 2. tvirpoo-StKros Rom. xv. 16, 31, 

2 Cor. vi. 2 (quot.), viii. 1 2. evxopat Rom. ix. 3, 2 Cor. xiii. 7, 9. 
f#<kra£ Rom. vi. xo, 1 Cor. xv. 6. «o? (prep.) 1 Cor. i. 8, iv. 13, 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 



VERBAL PECULIARITIES IN LETTERS 689 

viii, 7, xv, 6, xvi. 8, 2 Cor. L 13, iii. 15, xii. 2 (also in quots. Rom. 
lii. 12, xl 8). (t)A.6(d i Cor. xii. 31, xiii. 4, xiv. i, 39, 2 Cor. xi. 2, 
Gal. iv. 17, 18. (vnq 1 Cor. v. 6, 7, 8, Gal. v. 9. {vp.6u 1 Cor. 
v. 6 -Gal. v. 9 (proverb). faoTroiiat Rom. iv. 17, viii. 11, 1 Cor. xv. 
22, 36, 45, 2 Cor. iii. 6, Gal. iii. 21. ^a-tujiv* 1 Cor. xi. 17, 2 Cor. 
xii. 15. rimifxa* Rom. xi. 12, 1 Cor. vi. 7. 6d\aa<ra 1 Cor. x. i, 
2, 2 Cor. xi. 26 (also in quot. Rom. ix. 27). davaTou* Rom. vii. 4, 
viii. 13, 36 (quot.), 2 Cor. vi. 9. Oepifa 1 Cor. ix. 11, 2 Cor. ix. 6, 
Gal. vi. 7, 8, 9. 0r}Aus Rom. i. 26, 27, Gal. iii. 28. Orju-avpifo 
Rom. ii. 5, 1 Cor. xvi. 2, 2 Cor. xii. 14. 0i>y}t6s* Rom. vi. 12, viii. 
11, 1 Cor. xv. 53, 2 Cor. iv. 11, v. 4. dvo-iao-Tqpiov Rom. xi. 3, 

1 Cor. ix. 13, x. 18. iStwTTjs 1 Cor. xiv. 16, 23, 24, 2 Cor. xi. 6. 
IBov 1 Cor. xv. 51, 2 Cor. v. 17, vi. 2, 9, vii. 11, xii. 14, Gal. i. 20 
(also in quot. Rom. ix. 33). 'Icrpa-qkeirrjs Rom. ix. 4, xi. 1, 2 Cor. 
xi. 22. laxvpos 1 Cor. i. 25, 27, iv. 10, x. 22, 2 Cor. x. 10. "x vos 
Rom. iv. 12, 2 Cor. xii. 18. kq.06 Rom. viii. 26, 2 Cor. viii. 12. 
kolv 1 Cor. xiii. 2 bis, 3 ter (v. 1.), 2 Cor. xi. 16. Kaviav* 2 Cor. 
x. 13, 15, 16, Gal. vi. 16. KaraSuv\6(u* 2 Cor. xi. 20, Gal. ii. 4. 
Karaicrxviu) Rom. v. 5, ix. 7>Zi x - IX > * Cor. i. 27 bis, xi. 4, 5, 22, 

2 Cor. vii. 14, ix. 4. KaraKpivu) Rom. ii. 1, viii. 3, 34, xiv. 23, 1 Cor. 

xi. 32. xaraWayrj* Rom. V. II, xi. 15, 2 Cor. V. 18, 19. K-aTaA- 
Aaora-co* Rom. v. 10 bis, 1 Cor. vii. 11, 2 Cor. v. 18, 19, 20. KaraXvm 
Rom. xiv. 20, 2 Cor v. 1, Gal. ii. 18. KarzvavTi Rom. iv. 17, 2 Cor. 
ii. 17, xii. 19. KaT€cr6iu 2 Cor. xi. 20, Gal. v. 15. /car^x^ Rom. 
ii. 18, 1 Cor. xiv. 9, Gal. vi. 6. klvSwos* Rom. viii. 35, 2 Cor. xi. 
26. icXypovopeu 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10, xv. 50 bis, Gal. iv. 30 (quot.), v. 
21. kAvjtos Rom. i. 1, 6, 7, viii. 28, 1 Cor. i. 1, 2, 24. K\ipa* 
Rom. xv. 23, 2 Cor. xi. 10, Gal. i. 21. KoXacplfa 1 Cor. iv. 11, 
2 Cor. xii. 7. KokXdo/xai Rom. xii. 9, 1 Cor. vi. 16, 17. Kpdfa 
Rom. viii. 15, ix. 27, Gal. iv. 6. /cpe'as* Rom. xiv. 21, 1 Cor. viii. 
13. k/chtttos Rom. ii. 16, 29, 1 Cor. iv. 5, xiv. 25, 2 Cor. iv. 2. 
Ki-pow* 2 Cor. ii. 8, Gal. iii. 15. K&pos Rom. xiii. 13, Gal. v. 21. 
At0os 1 Cor. iii. 12, 2 Cor. iii. 7 (also in quot. Rom. ix. 32, 33). 
Ai/io'9 Rom. viii. 35, 2 Cor. xi. 27. ftaKapio-pos* Rom. iv. 6, 9, Gal. 
iv. 15. /xt #7/ Rom. xiii. 13, Gal. v. 21. fiepi^u) Rom. xii. 3, 1 Cor. 
i. 13, vii. 17, 34, 2 Cor. x. 13. fL€rapop<p6o pat Rom. xii. 2, 2 Cor. 
iii. 18. /juxpos 1 Cor. v. 6, Gal. v. 9. tiw/jatVw Rom. i. 22, 1 Cor. 
i. 20. Papuans* Rom. iv. 19, 2 Cor. iv. 10. £v\ov 1 Cor. iii. 12, 
Gal. iii. 13. o/aouos Rom. i. 27, 1 Cor. vii. 3, 4, 22. o/xws 1 Cor. 
xiv. 7, Gal. iii. 15. BxXov Rom. vi. 13, xiii. 12, 2 Cor. vi. 7, x. 4. 
opos 1 Cor. xiii. 2 (proverb), Gal. iv. 24, 25. ovflets 1 Cor. xiii. 2, 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 
2 X 



690 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

3, 2 Cor. xi. 8. ofaiXerrjs Rom. i. 14, viii. 12, xv. 27, Gal. v. 3. 
<tyeiA7J Rom. xiii. 7, 1 Cor. vii. 3. o</>eAov 1 Cor. iv. 8, 2 Cor. xi. 
i, Gal. v. 12. o<£is 1 Cor. x. 9, 2 Cor. xi. 3 d^wtov Rom. vi. 23, 
1 Cor. ix. 7, 2 Cor. xi. 8. nratSaywyos* 1 Cor. iv. 15, Gal. iii. 24, 
25. irdvTios Rom. iii. 9, 1 Cor. v. 10, ix. 10, 22, xvi. 12. irapa- 
PoLTrjs Rom. ii. 25, 27, Gal. ii. 18. Tra/ia^Aoco* Rom. x. 19, xi. 11, 
14, I Cor. X. 22. 7rapaKO-q Rom. V. 19, 2 Cor. x. 6. 7ra/)a<r/c€va£w 
1 Cor. xiv. 8, 2 Cor. ix. 2, 3. rrapturkpxop.au.* Rom. v. 20, Gal. ii. 

4. irapdkvos 1 Cor. vii. 25, 28, 34, $6, 37, 38, 2 Cor. xi. 2. re^ew 
1 Cor. v. 2, 2 Cor. xii. 21. ir*pi<ro-€ia Rom. v. 17, 2 Cor. viii. 2, 
x. 15. irepicro-os Rom. iii. 1, 1 Cor. xii. 23, 24, xv. 10, 2 Cor. ii. 7, 
ix. 1, x. 8. iriv<a Rom. xiv. 21, 1 Cor. ix. 4, x. 4, 7 (quot.), 21, 31, 
xi. 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, xv. 32 (quot.). TTtirTia Rom. xi. 11, 22, 
xiv. 4, 1 Cor. x. 8, 12, xiii. 8, xiv. 25. TrAovrtfw* 1 Cor. i. 5, 2 Cor. 
vi. 10. ix. 11. 7roios Rom. iii. 27, 1 Cor. xv. 35. rrov Rom. iii. 27, 

1 Cor. i. 20, xii. 17, 19, XV. 55 (quot.), Gal. iv. 15. rr poeir ay ykkXofxaL* 
Rom. i. 2, 2 Cor. ix. 5. vpoepw Rom. ix. 29, 2 Cor. vii. 3, xiii. 2. 
Gal. i. 9. 7rpokap./3dv<o 1 Cor. xi. 21, Gal. vi. 1. Trp6a-Kop.fia Rom, 
ix. 32, 33 (quot), xiv. 13, 20, 1 Cor. viii. 9. itt(ox6s Rom. xv. 26. 

2 Cor. vi. 10, Gal. ii. 10, iv. 9. Tra>p6u> Rom. xi. 7, 2 Cor. iii. 14. 
o-apMKos 1 Cor. iii. 3 bis, ix. 11, 2 Cor. i. 12, x. 4. o-dpKivo<s Rom. 
vii. 14, 1 Cor. iii. 1, 2 Cor. iii. 3. o-iydio Rom. xvi. 25, 1 Cor. xiv. 

28, 30, 34. <rKavSa\i£u) Rom. xiv. 21, 1 Cor. viii. 13 bis, 2 Cor. xi. 

29. a-KavSakov Rom. ix. 33 (quot.), xi. 9 (quot.), xiv. 13, xvi. 17. 

1 Cor. i. 23, Gal. v. 11. (nrdpio 1 Cor. ix. n, xv. 36, 37, 42, 43, 44, 

2 Cor. ix. 6 bis, 10, Gal. vi. 7, 8 bis. (nrov&rj Rom. xii. 8, 11, 2 Cor. 
vii. 11, 12, viii. 7, 8, 16. arravpom 1 Cor. i. 13, 23, ii. 2, 8, 2 Cor. 
xiii. 4, Gal. iii. 1, v. 24, vi. 14. crrcva^w Rom. viii. 23, 2 Cor. v. 2, 
4. <TT€vox<*>p£a-* Rom. ii. 9, viii. 35, 2 Cor. vi. 4, xii. 20. <rvp.^>kpoi 
1 Cor. vi. 12, x. 23, xii. 7, 2 Cor. viii. 10, xii. 1. arvvarrdyopaL Rom. 
xii. 16, Gal. ii. 13. o-w€py'a» Rom. viii. 28, 1 Cor. xvi. 16, 2 Cor. 
vi. 1. o-vveordio) 1 Cor. v. n, Gal. ii. 12. arvvevSoKeo) Rom. i. 32, 

1 Cor vii. 12, 13. o-w/cAftto Rom. xi. 32, Gal. iii. 22, 23. o~w- 
Kpivio* 1 Cor. ii. 13, 2 Cor. x. 12. a-wirda-x^* Rom. viii. 17, 1 Cor. 
xii. 26. a-vva-ravpoio Rom. vi. 6, Gal. ii. 20. Ta7reivos Rom. xii. 
16, 2 Cor. vii. 6, x. 1. rda-a-m Rom. xiii. 1, 1 Cor. xvi. 15. 
^octovtos 1 Cor. xiv. 10, Gal. iii. 4. rovvavriov 2 Cor. ii. 7, Gal. ii. 7. 
Tpirov 1 Cor. xii. 28, 2 Cor. xii. 14, xiii. 1. T/01V05 1 Cor. xv. 4, 

2 Cor. xii. 2. vfieTepos Rom. xi. 31, 1 Cor. xv. 31, xvi. 17, 2 Cor. 
viii. 8, Gal. vi. 13. v7repj3oh'q* Rom. vii. 13, 1 Cor. xii. 31, 2 Cor. 
L 8, iv. 7, 17, xii. 7, Gal. i. 13. virtpirtpi cro-evw* Rom. v. 20, 2 Cor 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 



VERBAL PECULIARITIES IN LETTERS 691 

vii. 4. v\fu>fia* Rom. viii. 39, 2 Cor. x. 5. ^avcpwcris* 1 Cor. xii. 
7, 2 Cor. iv. 2. (fteloojxnt, Rom. viii. 32, xi. 21, 1 Cor. vii. 28, 2 Cor. 
i. 23, xii. 6, xiii. 2. <£w*i Rom. iii. 18, 1 Cor. vi. 16, vii. 29, x. 15, 
19, xv. 50, 2 Cor, x. 10. </>0apros Rom. i. 23, 1 Cor. ix. 25, xv. 53, 
54. <f>opiu) Rom. xiii. 4, 1 Cor. xv. 49. ^pua-a-io Rom. iii. 19, 
2 Cor. xi. 10. t/j/idn/tos Rom. xi. 25, xii. 16, 1 Cor. iv. 10, x. 15, 
2 Cor. xi. 19. x e *^ os Rom. iii. 13 (quot.), 1 Cor. xiv. 21 (quot.). 
XPVfa Rom. xvi. 2, 2 Cor. iii. 1. ^cvoaScA^os* 2 Cor. xi. 26. 
Gal. ii. 4. <u<£cA«w Rom. ii. 25, 1 Cor. xiii. 3, xiv. 6, Gal. v. a. 



Ill 

The Prison Epistles 

1. In Phil, and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 
dyyws* i. 17. a&i)iioi4u> ii. 26. atcrOrjarcs* i. 9. aX-vr\p.o. iv. 6. 
ilxaipeofiai* iv. 10. dAu7ros* ii. 28. dva#dAAw* iv. 10. avaAvw 
i. 23. a7ro/?atVo> i. 19. aVovtria* ii. 12. aperr) iv. 8. upTrayfxos* 
ii. 6. acr^aArys iii. 1. o.vTapKr)$* iv. II. d<£opdu) ii. 23. j3e(3ai- 
awts i. 7. /5i/3Aos iv. 3. yv^o-tws* ii. 20. 8o<ris iv. 15. «*- 
AiK/nvrjs i. IO. eVrifios ii. 29. e£aydo-Ta<ris* iii. II. e^dvT^s ii. 23. 
ivr€KT€iVop.ai* iii. 13. €7rtAay#ai'0 ( «ai iii. 13. €7n7r69rjro$* iv. I. 
€Tfpa»s* iii. 15. €U(/>^/ios* iv. 8. evj/'vxew* ii. 19. ^/zia iii. 7, 8. 
"cros ii. 6. tcro^v^os* ii. 20. KatTrcp iii. 4. Kararofxi]* iii. 2. 
KaraY^oyios* ii. 10. K«yoSo£ta* ii. 3. kv(ov iii. 2. A^u^is* iv. 
15. /xeyaAws* iv. IO. pop<f>rj ii. 6, 7. pveofxai* iv. 12. ot)uai 
i. 17. OKra?j/x«/>os'* ( ' iii. 5. irapaf^oXivofiai* ii. 30. Trapafivdiov* 
ii. I. 7ra/3a7rAr^(rtop* ii. 27. n-oAiTcv/xa* iii. 20. :roAiT€i;o/xcu i. 27. 
7r/ciaiTw/3iov i. 13. yrrvpopLat* i. 28. ctkoAios ii. 15. o-Kv/^aAov* 
iii. 8. crvWap.(3dvui iv. 3. crvfxjjLop4>t(opiai* iii. 10. <rvva0Aeto* 
i. 27, iv. 3. <rw£vyos* iv. 3. o-vr/xi/x^T//s* iii. 17. a-vv^v^os* 
ii. 2. Tcwrcii'tocrts iii. 21. tcAciooo iii. 12. VTrepvtpou)* ii. 9. 
vo-Teprjcris iv. II. ^apwraio? iii. 5. <f>(j}(TTrjp ii. 15. yppTafyi iv. 12. 



2. In Eph. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 

dyvoia iv. 18. aypwrvku vi. 1 8. a#«os* ii. 12. aicrypoTYji* 

V. 4. al\p.aX.to(rta iv. 8 (quot.). ai^/AaA&)T€va)* iv. 8 (quot.). 

ttK/aoyojvtatos ii, 20. dfnf}OT€poi ii. 14, 16, 18. ai/aveoo/xcu* iv. 23. 

dviijpn. vi. 9. avoids* vi. 19. dVaAyeo/xou* iv. 19. arret A^ vi. 19. 

a<rod>os* v. 15. fickos* vi. 16. Swpov ii. 8. €Kiroptvop,ai iv. 29. 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 



692 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

lKTpi<fi<o* v. 29, iv. 4. woTrjs* iv. 3, 13. €^t,ar^v(a* iii. 18. 
ivepxofiat. ii. 17. 6iri8vu>* iv. 26. €7rt</>avcrKco* v. 14 (quot. from 
hymn). lrrovp6.vi.a (to)* i. 3, 20, ii. 6, iii. 10, vi. 12. Ipyao-i'a iv. 19, 
CTot/xaaic* vi. 15. <£ vi. 3 (quot.). evVoia* vL 7. €io"it\a y^vos 
IV. 32. cvVpaTreAia* v. 4. i^Ai/cia iv. 13. 6vpt6$* vi. 16. /cara- 
f$o\ri i. 4. KarapTtor/ios* iv. 12. KaToiK7)rrjptov ii. 22. Karwrepos* 
IV. 19 (quot.). KXrjpoofxat* i. 11. kAvoW^o/aou* iv. 14. Kocrfio- 
tcpa.T(op* vi. 12. Kpavyrj iv. 31. Kpv<f>y* v. 12. kv/3i<x* iv. 14. 
[xaKpdv ii. 13, 17. paKpoxpovios* vi. 3 (quot). /u«y€0os* i. 19. 
fjLedoSta* iv. 14, vi. 11. /zco-oTotxoi* ii. 14. fxrjicos iii. 18. -fnopo- 
Aoyia* v. 4. 6pyi£ofj.ai iv. 26 (quot.). 00-107175 iv. 24 (only other 
N. T. instance Benedictus, Lk. i. 75). oV</>vs vi. 14. 7raA>y* vi. 12. 
iravojrAta vi. 11. irdpoiKos ii. 19. 7rapopy 107*05* iv. 26. Trarpta 
iii. 15. 7repi£u>vvvp.i vi. 14. 7rAaros iii. 18. Troip.'qv iv. II. 
TroAiTeia ii. 12. 7roA.v7roiKiA.os* iii. 10. tt/30€ Arrt^u)* i. 12. irpocr- 
KapT€pi](ri<;* vi. 18. TT/Joa-KoAAaojuat v. 31 (quot.). pvris* V. 27. 
<ra7rp6<s iv. 29. crKoroopat, iv. 18. o-7rtAos v. 27. o-wap/xoAoyeco* 
ii. 21, iv. 16. arvvKaOi^ui ii. 6. o-vypeTo;(os* iii. 6, v. 7. o-woiko- 
Sopiu>* ii. 22. (rvv7ro\iTr)<i* ii. 19. crvVcto/Aos* iii. 6. o-femjpior 
(noun)* vi. 17. vSwp v. 26. vtrepaviti i. 21, iv. IO. VTroSto/Aai 
vi. 15. v^o? iii. 18, iv. 8 (quot.). 4>payp6s ii. 14. <f>p6vr)<ri$ i. 8. 
Xaptroa) i. 6. xeipoTnnv/To? ii. 11. 

3. In Col. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 

ddvpLeoi* iii. 21. cuVxpoAoyia* iii. 8. aAas iv. 6. dv€\pto<s* 
iv. IO. avTava7rA?7p6a)* i. 24. ayraTrdSocrts* iii. 24. a7T€KSw/^ai* 
ii. 15, iii. 9. a7reK6Wts* ii. 11. diroKpivofiat, iv. 6. dtroKpv<f>os ii. 3. 
a7rd\/n;a-is* ii. 22. dpe<TKca* i. 10. apri'io iv. 6. d(fi€L8Ca* ii. 23. 
fipafievu* iii. 15. yeuo/xai ii. 2 1. 8etyp.aTi£w ii. 1 5. 8oy[xart- 
£o[xoll* ii. 20. IdekodprjcrKia* ii. 23. et/oryro7rot€U)* i. 20. €/x- 
fia?€vio* ii. 18. li/raA/xa* ii. 22 (also in quot. Mt. xv. 9 = Mk. vii. 
7). €^a\eicf>io ii. 14. eopTT/ ii. 16. cu^a/our-ros* iii. 15. #€ot?75* 
ii. 9. $iyydvu) ii. 21. dpr}(TK*la. ii. 18. 0pdvos i. 16. iarpos 
iv. 14. Karafipafievu}* ii. 18. K-Arjpos i. 12. /A€TaKtvea>* i. 23. 
fAOfup-q* iii. 13. vto/xrjvCa* ii. 16. opards* i. 16. irapaXoyi^opai 
ii. 4. 7rapY)yopia* iv. II. 7ri#a»'oAoyta* ii. 4. Trcxpaivu) iii. 19. 
7rA7)O r /iOvr/* ii. 23. 7rdios iv. 13. 7rpoaKoixi)* i. 5. 7rpou-TjAdto* 
ii. 14. 7rpwT€vw* i. 18. cnaa ii. 17. ^KvOrjs* iii. it. o-repe- 
co/xa* ii. 5. cruAaywyeto* ii. 8. o-vVSovAos i. 7, iv. 7. o-w/xartKuls* 
ii. 9. tcAciot^s iii. 14. virevavTios ii. 14. </uAocro</>ia* ii. 81 
\€ip6ypa<f>ov* ii. 14. 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 



VERBAL PECULIARITIES IN LETTERS 693 

4. In Eph. and Col. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 
t$<n Eph. v. 19, Col. iii. 16. dvOpoi-rrdpearKoi* Eph. vi. 6, Col. iii. 

22. diraWorpioopai* Eph. ii. 12, iv. 1 8, Col. i. 21. aTroKaraX- 
A.ao-cra>* Eph. ii. 1 6, Col. i. 20, 21. av£rjo-ts* Eph. iv. 1 6, Col. ii. 19. 
a<£e<ris Eph. i. 7, Col. i. 14. a<}>rj* Eph. iv. 1 6, Col. ii. 19. Sidvoia 
Eph. ii. 3, iv. 18, Col. i. 21. Boyfxa Eph. ii. 15, Col. ii. 14. 
Swafioco Eph. vi. 10, Col. i. 11. 0€/AeAidw Eph. iii. 18, Col. i. 23. 
/caTeiw7Tioi' Eph. i. 4, Col. i. 22. KaroiK€(D Eph. iii. 17, Col. i. 19, 
ii. 9. KvptoTrjs Eph. i. 21, Col. i. 16. d^flaApooovAia* Eph. vi. 6, 
Col. iii. 22. pi£oo/i,ou* Eph. iii. 18, Col. ii. 7. o-vvoW/ios Eph. iv. 
3, Col. ii. 19, iii. 14. o-vv£wo7roi€w* Eph. ii. 15, Col. ii. 13. vfivos* 
P^ph. v. 19, Col. iii. 16. wSrJ Eph. v. 19, Col. iii. 16. 

5. In Phm. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 
dva7T€fi7ru> II. drrortvio* 19. d\pr)(TTOS* II. Ikowtios* 14. 

t7riT(i<Tcr<)) 8. £tvia 22. ovivafiat* 20. 7rpo<ro<f>€l\<o* 19. 

6. In two or all of the group (Phil., Eph.-Col., Phm.) and nowhere 
else in Pauline Epistles : — 

dfnofios Phil. ii. 15, Eph. i. 4, v. 27, Col. i. 22. ai^xw* Eph. v. 4, 
Col. iii. 18, Phm. 8. yeved Phil. ii. 15, Eph. iii. 5, 21, Col. i. 26. 
eVtxo/»/yta* Phil. i. 19, Eph. iv. 16. crvvKoiviavkia Phil. iv. 14, Eph. 
v. 11. crvva-TpaTLioTrjs* Phil. ii. 25, Phm. 2. T<nr€ivo<f>po<rvv7} PhiL 
ii. 3, Eph. iv. 2, Col. ii. 18, 23, iii. 12. 



IV 

The Pastoral Epistles 

• 1. In 1 Tim. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles :— 

dyvcia* iv. 12, V. 2. dSrjkoTrjs* vi. 1 7. aiSais* ii. 9. aAAoK 
V. 25. dfxoLJ3-q* V. 4. dvSpaTrodio-TirjS* i. 10. dveiriXrjfirrTOi* iii. 2, 
V. 7, vi. 14. dvriOecriS* vi. 20. ai'TiAa/i^avo/zaif vi. 2. dvri- 
XvTpov* ii. 6. a7T€/3avTOS* i. 4. a7roj8A>7Tos* iv. 4. diroScKTos* 
ii. 3, v. 4. ottoBox^* i. 15, iv. 9. aTrodrja-avpifo* vi. 1 9. airo- 
Aav<rts§ vi. 17. a7ro7rAai/aa> vi. 10. a7rp6(Tiros* vi. 6. apyos 
v. 13 bis (also in quot Tit. i. 12). avOwrkiD* ii. 12. <2#iAapy vpos § 
iii 3. f3a.0p.6s* iii. 13. /3Aa/3«pos* vi. 9. ppahvvta iii. 15. 
/3v#i£a>t vi. 9. ypawSTjs* iv. 7. yvfivdfo iv. 7. yvfivacrta* iv. 8- 
Sia7raparpij3r)* vi. 5. Siarpo^-q* vi. 8. St'Aoyos* iii. 8. StWKT^s* 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 

t Elsewhere in N. T. only in Luke (Gospel and Acts). 

§ Elsewhere in N. T. only in Heb. 



694 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

i. 13. SvvdcrTris-f vi. 15. tBpa!.u>/xa* iii. 15. €«r<£cpa> vi. 7. 
€Kyovos* V. 4. €K^rJTrj(Ti<i* i. 4. €K<fitpui vi. 7. eAucra-toV V. 9 

(also in quot. Rom. ix. 2). e/ATriVrco iii. 6, 7, vi. 9. !vrcv£i$* 
ii. I, iv. 5. IvTpkf^ofxai* iv. 6. €7raKo\ovdtiD v. 10, 24. ejrapKcu/* 
V. 10, 16 £/.?. kTTi\anfia.vop.ai vi. 12, 19. €7ri/AcA«)/Aait iii. 5. 
€7riopKOS* i. 10. !7ri7rA?ycro-a>* v. 1. (TriarKOTnj iii. 1. €TttrTa//at 

IV. 4. ZiriTiOrjLii v. 22. crepoSioao-KaAea)* i. 3, vi. 3. £vepy€(rta f 
vi. 2. €v/i€Ta8oros* vi. 18. €ra-«/?ewf v. 4. ((ooyoi'twf vi. 13. 
rjpefxos* ii. 2. T}<ri;x i0 S ii- 2. Oeoo-ejSeia* ii. 10. ^vt^ctkw v. 6. 
t/Aariayios f ii. 9. KaTaAcyo/mi* v. 9. Karao-roAry* ii. 9. kolto.- 
(TTprjvid(o* v. 11. Kavo-rqp ia£o//,ai* iv. 2. koivwi'ikos* vi. 18. 
koct/uos* ii. 9, iii. 2. /cocr/Aitos* ii. 9. KTtarpa iv. 4. Aoyo/xa^ia* 
vi. 4. AotSopia v. 14. fxapyapCrrj'S ii. 9. paTaioAoyi'a* i. 6. 
/jtcAeraw* iv. 15 (also in quot. Ac. iv. 25). p.€TdXrjn\pi$* iv. 3. 
p,ijTpoX(urjS* i. 9. fxovoofxai* v. 5. ved-njs iv. 12. ve6(f>VTOs* iii. 6. 
vittto) V. IO. vojUoS^acr/caAos - !' i. 7. vocrca)* vi. 4. ^voSoy^w* 

V. IO. otKo8€(T7roT60J* v. 1 4. 6/zoAoyov^i€j/(Ds* iii. 16. opeyofxat^ 
ill. I, vi. IO. TrapaSexofiai v. 1 9. 7raTpo\(prjs* i. 9. xcpiepyosf 
V. 13. irepUpypitai v. 13. 7r€pi7r€ipa>* vi. 10. 7repnroieop.cui 
iii. 13. zrAey/xa* ii. 9. TroAvreArJs ii. 9. 7ropt<r/ids* vi. 5, 6. 
TrpavrraOla* vi. II. "irpeafivTepLOVj iv. 14. Trpdo^Ao*^ v. 24, 25. 
irpoKpifid* V. 21. 7rpdo-KA«ris* v. 21. irpoo-pkvu) i. 3, v. 5. 
*rvKi/dsf v. 23. partus* iv. I. <TK€7raoyi.a* vi. 8. o-7roTaAaa> v. 6. 
o-TO/xa^os* V. 23. crw/xariKosf iv. 8. (no<f>po(rvvt] f ii. g. rd^eiov 
(v. 1.) iii. 14. T€KVoyov€(si* v. 14. T€Kvoyon'a* ii. 15. T€Krorpo<£cu>* 
v. 10. Ti/iaw v. 3 (also in quot. Eph. vi. 2). vSpoTtoreu)* v. 23. 
vTre/MrAeova^co* i. 14. virovoia* vi. 4. vcrrtpos iv. 1. v\J/t}\.o- 
<f>pov€(o* vi. 17. <j>L\apyvpta* vi. 10. (f>\vapos* v. 13. xlevSo- 
Adyos* iv. 2. \J/€v8iovvfj,os* vi. 20. 

2. In 2 Tim. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 
ddXeo)* ii. 5. aKatpaiS* iv. 2. aKpaTvys* iii. 3. <xVa£<D7rvpea)* 
i. 6. avaAwis* iv. 6. arav7/<£a>* ii. 26. ava^v^w* i. 16. 

dvc^tKaKOS* ii. 24. <xV«7rcucrx vvtos* ii. 15. avry/ie/aos* iii. 3. 

avoiaf iii. 9. uvti8io,ti0€/jlcu* ii. 25. aTrcu'ScvTOS* ii. 23. a7ro- 
rpeTTOfiai* iii. 5. a7rpd(rtTos* vi. 16. apyupeo? ii. 20. aprtos* 
iii. 17. atnrovSos* iii. 3. a(£tAaya#o«* iii. 3. a^apto-Tost iii. 2. 
fiekriov i. 18. j3p€<j>os iii. 15. yayypcut/a* ii. 17. yewpyo's ii. 6. 
yor)<s* iii. 13. yv^at/capioi/* iii. 6. SciAia* i. 7. Spofiosj iv. 7 
(cf. Ac. xx. 24). eKorjkos* iii. 9. eAcy/ids* iii. 16. €fX7r\€K<a ii. 4, 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 

t Elsewhere in N. T. only in Luke (Gospel and Acts). 

§ Elsewhere in N. T. only in Heb. 



VERBAL PECULIARITIES IN LETTERS 695 

€v8 vv(o* iii. 6. c^upTt^wf in. 17. e7rav6p6u><ri<i* iii. 16. iiri- 
anopevb)* iv. 3. eirirtfi-ditt iv. 2. £<t>y^ea)f ii. 26. ^fooyoi-ewf vi. 13. 
^7rtos* ii. 24 (also v.l. 1 Th. ii. 7). Oeoirvevo-Tos* iii. 16. kuko- 
iraOku) ii. 9. KaK-ovpyosf ii. 9. Karacrrpo^yq ii. 14. KaTatpOeipio* 
iii. 8. Kv^#a>* iv. 3. Kpirr'js iv. 8. Acwi/ iv. 17. Aiay iv. 15. 
Aoyo/ita^ea)* ii. 14. /xapLfx-q* i. 5. /xdyo/xai ii. 24. fiefiftpdva* 
iv. 13. /xevrou ii. 19. [xrjiroTC ii. 25. vccotcoikos* ii. 22. yo/zrj 
ii. 17. £vAiyos ii. 20. opOorofieu)* ii. 15. 7rto-Tdo//,ou* iii. 14. 
7rpayfxaTia ii. 4. TrpoSoT^sf iii. 4. TrpoTrtr-qs, f iii. 4. o-o<£i£w iii. 15. 
(TTcpeos ii. 19. 0-T€<£avdto§ ii. 5. <TTpa.Ti(0Tr)<; ii. 3. cTTparo Aoyfoj* 
ii. 4. o"WKa/co7ra#ew* i. 8, ii. 3. o-u>/3€ucd* iii. 6 (also in quot. 
Rom. xii. 20). o-u)(f>povicrfx6%* i. 7. viropAnja-is i. 5. <£eAoV/;s* 
iv. 13. cf)t\dpyvposj iii. 2. <£iA<xi;tos* iii. 2. ^tArJSovos* iii. 4. 
4>i\66to<s* iii. 4. x a ^°™ s ii'* l - x a ^ K€ ^ s * iy - r 4- xP v ? (ri / X0S * 
ii. 14. x/ ^ " 605 "• 2 °« 

In Tit. and nowhere else in Pauline Epistles : — 

alperiKOs* iii. 10. aKarayvwa-Tos* ii. 8. avTiAeyw i. 9, ii. 9 (also 
in quot. Rom. X. 21). ai/ux^eA^s § iii. 9. avddSqs i. 7. avro- 
KaTaKpiTos* iii. ii, d<f>dopia* ii. 7. ai/^uSv/s* i. 2. /38e\vK-6<i* 
i. 16. cy/cpa-r^s* i. 8. €Kcrrpe<po/zou* iii. 11. €7ri8io/o^da>* i. 5. 
tTTio-Tofx'iljo* i. 11. €7ri(£au'u>f ii. ii, iii. 4. i^Sov^ iii. 3. 6r)piov 
i. 12 (quot.). UpoTrpeTrrjs* ii. 3. 'IovSui'/cds* i. 14. KaXoSi8dar- 
xaAos* ii. 3. KaracrT^jua* ii. 3. koo~jxlk6s§ ii. 12. AetVtu i. 5, iii. 
13. XvTpoofJLau ii. 14. /xarcuoAdyos* i. 10. fxtacvu) i. 15. vopuKo? 
iii. 9, 13. i/o(r<jf)i{b/xai f ii. 10. oiKovpyds* ii. 5. dpyi'Aos* i. 7. 
7raAt^yci/€crta iii. 5. 7r€idapx€(i>J iii. 1. Trcpiowrtos* ii. 14 (quot.). 
7r€pi(f>pove(0* ii. 15 Trpccr/JuTts* ii. 3. crrvy^Tos* iii. 3. trtoTvjoios* 
ii. 11. ar<0<f}poi>i((i>* ii. 4. o-<o<£pdv<os* ii. 12. vyujs ii. 8. <f>i\d- 
ya6os* i. 8. <f>iXav8pos* ii. 4. <fn\avdpoi7riaj iii. 4. <£iAot€KI/os* 
ii. 4. (fipevaTrdrrjs* i. 10. <f>povTt£o>* iii. 6. 

4. In two or all of the group and nowhere else in Pauline 
Epistles : — 

alaxpoKfpBrjs* 1 Tim. iii. 8, Tit. i. 7. a/za-xos* 1 Tim. iii. 3, 
Tit. iii. 2. dvarpeTTU) 2 Tim. ii. 18, Tit. i. 11. dvoaios* 1 Tim. i. 9. 
2 Tim. iii. 2. di/v7rdraKTos§ 1 Tim. i. 9, Tit. i. 6, 10. dmo A«Va> 
2 Tim. iv. 13, 20, Tit. i. 5. dpveo/xcu 1 Tim. v. 8, 2 Tim. ii. 12, 13 
(quot. from hymn), Tit. i. 16, ii. 12. dcrTo\€iD* 1 Tim. i. 6, vi. 21, 
2 Tim. ii. 18. /3e^>;Aos§ 1 Tim. i. 9, iv. 7, vi. 20, 2 Tim. ii. 16. 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 

t Elsewhere in N. T. only in Luke (Gospel and Acts). 

§ Elsewhere in N, T. only in Heb, 



696 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 

flits i Tim. ii. 2, 2 Tim. ii. 4. pXda-^rjfxos 1 Tim. i. 13, 2 Tim. iii 
2. yej/eaXoyta* 1 Tim. i. 4, Tit. iii. 9. oWttot^s 1 Tim. vi. 1, 2, 
2 Tim. ii. 21, Tit. ii. 9. Sia/?€/?cu<$o/*ai* 1 Tim. i. 7, Tit. iii. 8. 
Siayw* 1 Tim. ii. 2, Tit. iii. 3. BiSolktikSs* i Tim. iii. 2, 2 Tim. ii. 
24. €KTp€7rofiai§ 1 Tim. i. 6, v. 15, vi. 20, 2 Tim. iv. 4. €7ri#«ris 

1 Tim. iv. 14, 2 Tim. i. 6. evo-cpeia 1 Tim. ii. 2, iii. 16, iv. 7, 8, 
vi- 3> 5i 6, 11, 2 Tim. iii. 5, Tit. i. 1. ewrc/SuJs* 2 Tim. iii. 12, 
Tit. ii. 12. (rjTrjo-is 1 Tim. vi. 4, 2 Tim. ii. 23, Tit. iii. 9. Kartf- 
yopia 1 Tim. v. 19, Tit. i. 6. kcvo(J><i>vi<l* i Tim. vi. 20, 2 Tim. ii. 
16. Kr}pv£ 1 Tim. ii. 7, 2 Tim. i. 11. Kocrfxkui 1 Tim. ii. 9, Tit. 
ii. 10. fxaprvpia 1 Tim. iii. 7, Tit. i. 13. pvdos 1 Tim. i. 4, iv. 7, 

2 Tim. iv. 4, Tit. i. 14. vq<fidX.ios* 1 Tim. iii. 2, 11, Tit. ii. 2. 
vojiipim* 1 Tim. i. 8, 2 Tim. ii. 5. 00-10? 1 Tim. ii. 8, Tit. i. 8. 
7rapa&7]Kri* 1 Tim. vi. 20, 2 Tim. i. 12, 14. xapatrkofxai 1 Tim. iv. 
7, v. 11, 2 Tim. ii. 23, Tit. iii. 10. irapaKoXovdeio 1 Tim. iv. 6 
2 Tim. iii. 10. -rrapoivos* 1 Tim. iii. 3, Tit. i. 7. n-couVny/u 
2 Tim. ii. 16, Tit. iii. 9. ttAvjkt^s* i Tim. iii. 3, Tit. i. 7. 7roiKt'A,o$ 
2 Tim. iii. 6, Tit. iii. 3. irpecrfivTepos 1 Tim. v. 1, 2, 17, 19, Tit. 
i. 5. rrpoyovos* 1 Tim. v. 4, 2 Tim. i. 3. vrpoaex^ 1 Tim. i. 4, 
iii. 8, iv. 1, 13, vi. 3, Tit. i. 14. o-c/xvot^s* 1 Tim. ii. 2, iii. 4, Tit. 
ii. 7. <ru>(f>pa)v* 1 Tim. iii. 2, Tit. i. 8, ii. 2, 5. rv(f>6op.at* 1 Tim. 
iii. 6, vi. 4, 2 Tim. iii. 4. vytatva> 1 Tim. i. 10, vi. 3, 2 Tim. i. 13, 
iv. 3, Tit. i. 9, 13, ii. 1, 2. vTrop.Lfxv^a-KO) 2 Tim. ii. 14, Tit. iii. 1. 
VTrorvn-oMTis* 1 Tim. i. 16, 2 Tim. i. 13. <£iAo£ei/os 1 Tim. iii. 2, 
Tit. i. 8. x ii P (3iV 1 Tim. v. 8, 2 Tim. iii. 13. w<£«Ai/aos* 1 Tim ; 
iv. 8, 2 Tim. iii. 16, Tit. iii. 8. 

* Nowhere else in N. T. 

t Elsewhere in N. T. only in Luke (Gospel and Acts). 

§ Elsewhere in N. T. only in Heb, 



INDEX 



I.— NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



AcHAICUS, 259, 26l. 

Acts, an unfinished work, 384. 

Adada, 106. 

Adoption, 209, 419 i. 

Adria, 497. 

/Eons, 524, 592. 

Agabus, 72, 466. 

' Ages,' 153. 

Agrippa 1, 71 f. 

Agrippa 11, 486 ff. 

Agrippina, 503 f. 

Alexander of Ephesus, 342. 

the coppersmith, 624. 

the Great, 7. 

Alexandria, 4. 
Allegorising, Gnostic, 592 f. 

Rabbinical, 27. 

Altars to unknown gods, 11. 
Amanuensis, 154 f. 
Ambrose and Theodosius, 326. 
Amphipolis, 135. 
Ananias of Damascus, 55. 

the High Priest, 475, 4S1. 

Anastasis, 144. 

Angaria, 166. 

Angelic mediators, 524, 531, 550, 

592. 
Angelolatry, 550. 
Angels, 206, 284. 
Animal body, 319. 
Animal-worship, 382. 
Anthropomorphites, 317. 
Antichrist, 171 ff. 
Antinomianism, 153, 161, 195, 201, 

214, 23S, 293, 411, 517. 
Antioch, Pisidian, 89 f. 

Syrian, 65 ff. 

Antiochene subsidy, 73. 
Antiochus Epiphanes, 172, 181. 
Appeal to the Emperor, 485. 
Apocryphal Gospels, 593. 
Apollonia, 135. 

Apollos, 228, 240, 323, 615 f., 621. 
Apostasy, 181. 
Apostle, large use of, 60. 
Apostleship of Paul challenged, 195, 

197 ff., 272 ff. 
Apostolic Fathers and Pastorals, 

587 *- 



Apphia, 568. 

AqucB Salvia, 640. 

Aquila and Prisca, 151, 189 f., 228, 

3-«4, 343- 
Arabia, 56 f. 

Aratus, 18, 24. 

Archippus, 568. 

Archons, 97 f. 

Areiopagos, 144. 

Aristarchus, 137, 342, 491, 522. 

Aristobulus, 456. 

Arria, 491. 

Artemas, 621. 

Asceticism, 235, 447 ff., 551 f., 559 f., 

604. 
Asiarchs, 225, 342. 
Assassins, 473. 
Astral body. 319. 
Astrology, 84 f. 
Attaleia, 87, 106. 
Attendant, 79. 
Augustan Cohort, 490. 
Autobiography, Paul's spiritual, 

414 ff. 
Autonomy of the Jews in religion, 

45- 

Baptism for the dead, 314 f. 
Barjesus, 85. 
^.Barnabas, 59 f., 69 f., 73, 81. 116 ff M 
118. 
Bernice, 486. 
Beroea, 139. 
Bestiarii, 254. 
' Bishop,' 463, 589 ff. 
Body and flesh, 318 f., 418. 
Body essentially evil, 235. 
Body of Christ (the Church), 291, 

442. 
Brigandage, 9, 89, 90. 
Burial of Paul, 641. 
Burning of Rome, 612, 623. 
Burni6, 503. 

Carpus, 624, 

Castva Peregrinorum, 490, 502. 
Casuistry, 390. 
; Catechists, 218. 
Catholic custom, 286, 310. 



698 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Ccnchreae, 189. 

Cerinthus, 524, 525. 

Chanina, R., 32. 

' Chief Shepherd/ 590. 

Chloe, 238. 

' Christ Jesus ' : ' Jesus Christ,' 379, 
629 f. 

Christian, the name, 67 f. 

Church, growth in Paul's concep- 
tion, 533 f. 

modelled on Synagogue, 605. 

the Body of Christ, 291, 531. 

— — the Commonwealth of God, 

512, 533- 
— — the Living Temple, 534. 

the Pillar of the Truth, 603 f. 

Cilician Gates, 104, 120, 223. 

Circumcision, 109, 391. 

Civitas Dei, 512, 518, 533. 

Classical quotations, 24. 

Clauda, 494. 

Claudius' expulsion of Jews from 

Rome, 131, 151. 
Claudius Lysias, 472. 
Clemens Romanus, 585, 587. 
Clement, 519. 
Collection for poor at Jerusalem, 

223, 234, 321 f., 344, 366. 
Colleges, Rabbinical, 26. 
Colossas, 546. 

Colossians, letter to the, 555 ff. 
Common Greek, 7 f. 
Communism, 36 f. 
Conference at Jerusalem, 74 f. 
Corinth, 149 ff., 188. 

parties at, 240. 

Corinthians, first letter to (1 Cor. vi. 

12-20 ; 2 Cor. vi. 14-vii. 1), 236 f. 
— — second letter to (1 Cor.), 242 ff. 
third letter to (2 Cor. x-xiii. 

10), 327 ff. 
fourth letter to (2 Cor. i-ix, 

xiii. 11-14), 346 ff. 
Cornelius, 112. 
Corn-ships, 492. 
Council at Jerusalem, 11 1 ff. 
Couriers, 167. 

Covenant, Old and New, 354 ff. 
Cremation, 316. 
Crescens, 624. 
Crete, 613 i. 
Crispus, 168. 
Cyprus, 81 ff. 

Dalmatia, 612, 624. 
Damaris, 148. 
Damascus, 49 ff. 
Darwin, 306. 
Deacon, 39, 589, 603. 
Deaconess, 189, 603. 



Death and sin, 403 ff. 

Decree of Council at Jerusalem, 113. 

Deity of Christ, 161, 426, 451 f., 464. 

Delation, 384 f. 

Demas, 522, 624 f., 635. 

Demetrius, the silversmith, 341. 

Democratic constitution of Apostolic 

Church, 39, 81, in, 114, 605. 
' Deposit,' 593 f., 628. 
Derbe, 104, 120. 
Descensus ad Inferos, 539. 
Dionysius the Areopagite, 147. 
' Discipline,' 593. 
Discipline of offenders, 216. 
Disembodiment, 359 ff. 
Dispersion, 3 ff. 
Divine right of kings, 444. 
Divorce, 262. 
' Dogs,' 516. 
Dreams, 54 f., 125. 
Drusilla, 480, 482. 

' Earnest,' 349. 

Earthly body, 319. 

Egnatian Way, 9. 

Elder, 463, 589 f., 603, 605. 

Elders of Ephesus at Miletus, 462 ff. 

Election, 426 f . 

Ely mas, 85. 

Empire, Roman, 8 fl. 

Epaenetus, 191. 

Epaphras, 546, 566. 

Epaphroditus, 507 ff., 516. 

' Ephesian Letters,' 228. 

' Ephesians, Epistle to the,' 528 ff. 

Ephesus, 225 ff. 

Epictetus, 548, 570. 

Epicureans, 143. 

Epimenides, 11, 24, 618. 

Episcopos, 590, 605. 

Erastus of Ephesus, 260, 623 f. 

Erskine of Linlathen, 301 ff. 

Essenes, 37, 447, 549 ff. 

Ethereal body, 52, 319. 

Euodia, 518. 

Eunice, 100. 

Euraquilo (Euroclydon), 493. 

Eutychus, 461. 

Evil eye, 203. 

' Examination,' 252 f., 425. 

Execution of Paul, 640. 

Exorcism, 231 ff. 

Exposure of children, 386. 

' Fables,' 592. 
Fair Havens, 492 t 
' Faithful words,' 594. 
Famine, 72 f. 
' Fashion,' 513. 



INDEX 



699 



Fatherhood, the Heavenly Arche- 
type of, 537. 
' Fear of the Lord,' 361. 
Feasts in idol-temples, 269. 
Felix, 480 ff. 
Festus, 484 ff. 
Flesh and spirit, 214, 418. 
' Form,' 513. 
Fortunatus, 259, 261. 
Fortune-teller, 130. 
' Forty stripes save one,' 334. 
Francis of Assisi, 336. 
' Fruit of the spirit,' 215. 
' Fulness,' 524, 531. 

Gaius of Corinth, 168, 372. 

of Derbe, 104, 224, 342, 371. 

Galatia, 89 f., 223 f. 
Galatians, letter to the, 195 ff. 
Gallia Cisalpina, mission to, 612 f., 

624. 
Gallio, 185 f. 
Gamaliel, 28 f. 
Gaoler of Philippi, 133 f. 
Gates of Cilicia, 104, 120, 223. 
' Genealogies,' 592. 
Gentile converts, low morality of, 

161, 195, 214, 517, 540. 
hostility to the Gospel worldly, 

not religious, 130, 341. 
Gentiles and the Law, 108 ff. 
first evangelised at Antioch, 

69. 
Gibbon, 11. 
Gnosticism, 523 ff. 
Gnostics (the name), 525. 
God-fearers, 12 f. 
Gods of heathendom, 270 f. 
Gospel a treasonable propaganda, 

131, 138, 174. 
Grafting, 438. 
Greek colonisation, 3. 

conquests, 7. 

Common, 7 f. 

Hadrian to his soul, 360. 

Hagar, 211. 

Haggadah, 27. 

Halachak, 27. 

' Harrowing of Hell,' 539. 

Headship of Christ, 531. 

Heathendom, corruption of, 383 ff. 

Heavenly body, 319. 

' Heavenly regions,' 524. 

Heavens, the Seven, 335. 

Hebrews, 38. 

Epistle to the, 639. 

Helena, Queen of Abdiene, 73. 
Helius, 625. 
Hellenists, 5, 38. 



Heresy in Asia, 523 fl. 
Hermes, 101. 
Hermogenes, 623, 629. 
Herod Agrippa 1, 71 f. 

11, 486 ff. 

Hierapolis, 548. 

High Priest, Paul's encounter with, 

475 *■ 
Hillel, 28. 

' House of Interpretation,' 26. 
' House of the Book,' 22. 
Huns, 176. 

Husbands and wives, 542 f., 564. 
Hymenaeus, 631. 

Hymns, quotations from primitive, 
161, 410 f., 542, 595, 604, O30. 

ICONIUM, 96 f. 

Idolatry, 382. 

Idols, food sacrificed to, 269 ff. 
' Image of God,' 513 f., 556. 
Immortality, quarrel between Sad- 

ducees and Pharisees, 476 f. 
Imputation, 313, 402 f., 436. 
Inarticulate language, 306. 
Incarnation, 514, 525, 538. 
Informers, 384 f. 
Insanity, reverence for, 130. 
Intellectuals, 244 ff., 249. 
Irresponsibility of God, 428. 
Irvingites, 300 ff. 
Islam, 176. 
Isthmian Games, 150, 275. 

James, the Lord's brother, 60, 108, 

112 f. 

the son of Zebedee, 72. 

Jannes and Jambres, 632 f. 

Jason, 136 f. 

' Jesus Christ ' : ' Christ Jesus,' 379, 

629 f. 
Jesus Justus, 523. 
' Jew,' 389. 
Jewish Gnosticism, 549 ff. 

monotheism, attraction of, 12. 

Jews, contempt for, 5. 

expelled from Rome, 131, 

I5i- 



first addressed, 83, 380 f., 
502 f. 
John Mark. See Mark. 
John the Baptist's disciples, 228 ff. 
Judaists, 74 f., 108 ff., 194 ff., 260, 

329 ff., 372 f., 506, 516 f. 
Judas Barsabbas, 114, 116. 
Julian, 67. 

Julius the centurion, 491 fl. 
Justin Martyr, n. 
Justus (Titius), 168. 



7oo LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Kings, divine right of, 444. 
Kiss, 1 66, 464. 

Language, universal, 7 f. 
Languages and tongues, 296 ff. 
Laodiceia, 546 f. 
Law, double signification, 396. 

given by angels, 206. 

Paul's attitude to the, 120, 193, 

413 ff. 

study of the, 26. 

taught by rote to children, 23. 



Lawyer, 26, 622. 

Laying on of hands, 605. 

Letters, conveyance of, 166 f. 

Letter- writing, 154 f. 

Libertinism, 235. 

Liberty, Christian, 272 ff. 

Linus, 588. 

Litigation, 242, 258. 

Lois, 100. 

' Lord,' title of heathen deities and 

Emperor, 271. 
* Lords ' and ' masters/ 588. 
Love-feast, 37, 286. 
Love, praise of, 293 ff. 
Lucina, 641. 
Lucius of Cyrene, 80. 
Luke, 90 f., 105, 123, 125, 135, 344, 

368, 491, 522, 584, 595 f., 
Lycus valley, 546 ff., 598. 
Lydia, 128 f. 
Lysias, 472. 
Lystra, 99 f. 

Macedonia, 125. 

Macedonian poverty, 366. 

Magic, Ephesian, 228, 231, 633. 

Maimonides, 22, 30. 

Malady, Paul's, 87, 122, 149, 189. 

Malaria, 87. 

Malea, 149. 

Manaen, 80. 

Manual of Christian teaching, 412, 

594- 
Marcus Aurelius, 410. 
Marginalia, 245, 334, 389, 401, 609, 

610. 
Mark, 79, 88, 117, 522, 566, 635. 
Marriage, 30, 262, 543. 
Mary of Ephesus, 457. 
' Masters ' and ' lords,' 588. 
Masters and slaves, 543, 564, 
Matter essentially evil, 524, 549. 
Medical terms, 56, 70, 161, 491, 499, 

589, 610. 
Melita (Malta), 496, 498. 
Menander, 24. 
Mercenariness, 608, 609 i 
Midrashf 26 t 



Miletus, 462. 

Millennium, 154, 300. 

Ministries in the Church, 291. 

Miraculous gifts, 35 1 

Mishnah y 23. 

Mixed marriages, 263 f. 

Mnason, 467. 

Muratorian, Canon, 585. 

Mysteries, Greek, 276 f. 

* Mystery,' 320, 440, 529, 536. 

Naasenes, 524, 548. 
Names, Jews' double, 21. 
Nannacus, 96. 
Narcissus, 456. 
Natural affection, 386. 
Navigation, season for, 648. 
Nazirite vow, 190, 472. 
Neapolis, 126. 
Neopythagoreanism, 448. 
Nephew of Paul, 478. 
Nero, 503 ff., 625, 639. 

redivivus, 174 f. 

Nicolaitans, 526. 
Nicolaus, 39, 526. 
Nicopolis, 615 f., 622. 
Nympha, 566. 

Oaths, absolution from, 485. 

Onesimus, 545 f. 

Onesiphorus, 626, 629. 

Ophioryme, 548. 

Ophites, 524, 548. 

Oral tradition, 80, 218, 287. 

Orders of primitive ministry, 463, 

589, 605. 
Ordination, 605. 
Overseer, 589 ff., 603. 

Pagan Religion, decay of, 10 1 
Pamphylia, 86 f . 
' Panoply of God,' 543 f. 
Paphos, 84. 
Papyrus, 155. 
Paradise, 335. 

Parents and children, 543, 564. 
Paronomasia, 517. 
Parties at Corinth, 241 f. 
Pastoral Epistles, 579 ff. 
Pastors, 539. 
Paul, the name, 21. 
' Pedagogue,' 206 f. 
Pentecost, 4. 

Pentecostal Brethren, 302. 
Peregrini, 490. 
Perga, 87, 106. 

Persecution a furtherance of the 
Gospel, 65. 

— the first, 45 ff. 

~— Herod Agrippa i*s, 71 t 






INDEX 



701 



Persecution in Macedonia, 141. 
Peter at Antioch, 108 ff. 

at the Council, nt, 

Pharisaism, 32. 
Pharisees, 20 f., 32. 
Philemon, 545, 568. 

letter to, 574 ff. 

Philetus, 631. 

Philip, 39 f., 466. 

Philippi, 126 f. 

Philippian generosity, 137, 142, 152, 

273, 508, 520. 
Philippians, letter to the, 510 ff. 
Philosophers, 143 f. 
Phoebe, 189. 
Phcenix, 493. 
Phrygian slave, 545. 
Phygelus, 623, 629. 
' Pillars,' 199. 
Piracy, 0. 

Plausibility, charge of, 197, 213, 362. 
Pleroma, 524. 

Plot to assassinate Paul, 459, 477 f. 
Politarchs, 136. 
Pompey's deportation of Jewish 

captives, 3. 

desecration of the Temple, 172. 

Pope as Antichrist, 176. 
Poppeea Sabina, 505. 
Potter and clay, 428, 430 f. 
Precognition, 252 f., 625. 
Presbyter, 463, 589 ff., 603, 605. 
Presbytery, 605. 
Prisca, Priscilla, 151. 
Prison at Philippi, 132 f. 
Progress of Gospel after Crucifixion, 

35 f. 

Prophecy and tongues, 302 f. 

Prophet, 72, 292, 535. 

Prophetess, 310. 

Prophets, Essene, 551. 

of the Cevennes, 299 f. 

Proselytism, 6. 

Proverbs, 48, 65, 149, 150, 184, 213, 
218, 251, 253, 276, 293, 370, 384, 
475, 532, 545, 572, 608, 614. 

Providential interposition, 122. 

Publius, 499. 

Puteoli, 500. 

Ptolemais, 466. 

Quinquennium Neronis, 504. 

Rab, Rabbi, Rabban, 26. 
Rabbinism of Paul, 27, 204. 
Rabbis and trade, 24 f . 
' Reading,' 536, 605. 
Reception, 37, 288. 
Reconciliation, 362, 402. 
Reformation as the Apostasy, 177. 



Reformers as precursors of Anti- 
christ, 177. 

Remuneration, 273 ff., 323, 338. 

' Restraint,' ' Restrainer,' 173. 

Resurrection, 144, 311 ff. 

Gnostic doctrine of, $31. 

Riot of Ephesus, 342 i. 

Jerusalem, 472 i. 

Rock, the stricken, 277. 

Roman Citizenship, 20, 132, 474. 

Empire, 8 ff. 

Law, 10, 173 f. 

Peace, 9. 

Roads, 9. 

' Romans, Epistle to the/ 378 fl. 

Rome, burning of, 612, 625. 

early introduction of Chris- 
tianity, 151, 506. 

Rulers, obedience to, 444 f. 

Sabinus, 625. 

Sacramental security, 276 ff. 

Sacrilege, 389 f. 

Salamis, 83. 

Sanhedrin, 475 f. 

Sarcasm of Paul, 327. 

Saul, Paul's Jewish name, 21. 

Scurrility of the Antiochenes, 67. 

Second Advent, 35, 136 f., 138, 

153, 170 ff., 300, 632. 
' Seed,' 204 f. 
Seneca, 185, 503, 571. 
Septuagint, 22. 
Sergius Paulus, 84. 
Seven Heavens, 335. 
Seven, the, 39. 
Shammai, 28. 
Shekinah, 277, 337 f., 426. 
Ships, 492. 
Shorthand, 668 f. 

Silas (Silvanus), 114, 118, 142, 152. 
Simon Magus, 524. 
' Slave of Christ,' 265. 
Slavery, 569 ff., 609. 
Socrates, 144. 
Sosthenes, 187, 243. 
Sovereignty of Christ, 531. 

God, 427. 

Spain, mission to, 612 f. 
Spirit and flesh, 214, 418. 
Spiritual body, 319. 

gifts, 289 ff. 

' Spiritual marriage,' 266 f. 
Spirituals, 238, 289. 
Stephanas, 148, 259, 261, 324. 
Stephen, 39 ff. 
Stoic, 24, 143. 
Suicide, 385. 

Sun-worship, Essene, 553. 
Supper, Lord's, 286 fl. 



;o2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



Symeon Niger, 80. 
Syncretism, 12. 
Syntyche, 518. 
Syria-Cilicia, 61 f., 119 t 
Syrtis, 494. 

Tarsus, 17 ff. 

Taurus, 89, 106. 

Taxes, 445 f. 

Teacher, 80, 218, 292, 593. 

Temple of Artemis, 226 f . 

Temples, plunder of heathen, 389. 

Tent-making, 25. 

Tertius, 378. 

Tertullus, 481. 

' Testimonies,' 229, 394. 

Theatre, 342. 

Theodore of Mopsuestia, 586. 

Thessalonica, 135 f. 

Thessalonians, first letter to the, 
154 ff. 

second letter to the, 179 ff. 

' Thorn for the flesh,' 337, 664 f . 

Tigellinus, 625. 

Timothy, 100, 121, 142, 152, 167, 
191, 260, 323, 325, 597 ff., 638 f. 

first letter to, 599 ff. 

second letter to, 627 ff. 

Titius Justus, 168. 

Titus, with eleemosynary expedi- 
tion, 73 f. 

question of his circumcision, 

74 f. 

accompanies third mission, 

223 f. 

first mission to Corinth, 234, 

338. 
second mission to Corinth, 340, 

345- 

third mission to Corinth, 366. 

joins Paul at Antioch, 611. 

accompanies him on his last 

journey, 623. 

letter to, 617 ff. 

Tongues, 295 ff. 



Trade, 24 f. 

Tradition, Evangelic, 80, 218, 287, 

593 *• 
Tre Fontane, 640. 

Tripartite nature of man, 166, 249. 
Triumph (Roman), 352. 
Troas, 124, 344, 624. 
Trogyllium, 462. 
Trophimus, 371 f., 472, 623. 
Trosly, Council of, 154. 
Tryphaena, 457. 
Tryphosa, 457. 

Tychicus, 371 f., 522, 621, 635. 
Tyrannos, 231. 

Union with Christ, 201, 216, 409, 

418, 532, 563. 
' Universal Bishop,' 176. 
Unknown gods, 11, 143. 
Unwritten Law, 389. 

Varro, 10. 
Vegetarianism, 448. 
Veil, 282 ff. 
Ventriloquist, 130. 
Viper, 497, 499. 
Virginity, 266 f. 
' Voices,' 298. 
Vows, absolution from, 485. 

Way, the, 47. 

' West, the boundary of the,' 585. 

Widows, 606. 

Women and Jewish religion, 6. 

Women in Macedonia, 128. 

their position in the Church, 

282 ff., 310, 602. 
' Works of the flesh,'" 215. 

Xenophanes, 10. 

Zealots, 444. 
Zenas, 616, 621. 
Zeus, i oi. 



II.—GREEK WORDS AND PHRASES 



d#9a, 209 
S.3u<r<ros, 433 
dyaBos, 402 
&ya/j.os, 31 
Ayap, 211 
dyvoeiv, 1 63 
dyopaios, 138 
ddrjjj.ove^, $t$ 
dSidXeiwros, 425 
'A3p/a$, 497 

■M". I53> 5 2 4 
afwvtoy, 180 
dKpo7a>j/tatos, 534 
dXa£ovia, 384 
dXrjdevetv, 211 
dXy, 565 
tiyd7i/fa)crt5, 536 
dvaKbttTtiv, 213 
dvaxpiveiv, 252 f. 
dvd<7rao"ij &c veicpCiv, 
di'dcrracrts tcDv veKp&v 
dva.cTO.Tovv, 21 0t 
dveijiKa.KO$ f 632 
dve^t6s, 79 
di'Tt5iaT/077ui, 632 
dirt0e<rtr, 6ll 
dirairav, 1 30 
air' dpx^J, 183 
dTT€<SiJ€ffda.i f 561 
dir*x«v, 521, 575 
dTOKpi/xa, 347 
dpianeLVy 418 
apTrayp.6s, 514 
dppafiwv, 349 
dpTtfiuv, 497 
dpxnrolnrjv, 590 

drevt^etv, 70 
dro7roy, 183 
a!)#d§??s, 618 
aurdp/ceia, 24, 370 
dfecris, 396 
d<pdapaia, 545 
d<pdopla, 619 
d<poplfeiv, 21 

dcpopfj.7), 215 
ftcppwv, 318 






*<*«* rt), 435 
/SaTT/feti/, 675 

p&ppapos, 380, 497 

/Sacr KaivcLV , 203 

BeXtap, 237 

j3iwrt/c6y, 259 

yap.l^HVy 268 
7€»/eaXo7ta, 592 
yvrjcie ovv'gvye, 519 
7vu)(7ts, 290, 517 

8et.y/j.aTt£eiy, 56 1 
5eiei8ai/j.wv , 145 
de<rir6rr]s, 588 
SidKOPos, 463 
5ida<TKa\ia, 593 
Siepx^crdac, 83 
SitfdAacrcos, 497 
ot'^atoj, 402 
diKaiwfxa, 407 
8oKi[xd^€iv, 165 
5(M«^dfei>' rd 5ia0e popra, 

390, 510 
SoXow, 357 
56cris /cat \ij/j.\f/is, 52 1 
Sward r<p Gey, 328 
duped, 407 

etoos, 165 
elXiKpLvla, 354 
f/rS^X^tfai, 288 
^k TTt'crrews eis iricxTtv, 38 1 
tKCTaacs, 76 
Hfcrpoifxa, 312 
frxwis, 675 
ifx^areveiv, 562 
iv€fr/eii>, 159 
ivKbirrei-v, 21 3 
ec dXrycp, 489 
e»> wpwTOLS, 312 

^ Xpl<TT(p, 202 

i£aprlfriv, 594 
iirieiKis, ixietKia, 520 
iirtdav&Tios, 254 
iTifAeXeta, 49 1 
ivwKT}vovv, 338 



iirloKovos, 463 
iiriaroXai, 322, 50J 
iincrvv ay u}y/>, 182 
e7rtrpo7roj, 208 
€7ri(/>aLv€iv, 594 
itrMpdveia, 182 
iirixop-rjyeiv, 203 
itrovpdvia (rd), 557 
: E(r<ratot, 551 
'icroTrrpov, 295 
earravpoj/xtvos, 203 

texv™, 347 
irepofvyeiv, 236 
evpaicuXuVy 493 
fvTpzTreX'ta, 54 1 

^' v> 403 

Iws rAous, 348 

'{taoyoviiv, 6lO 

TjXitda, 540 

deoTTvevaros, 634 
BeocrTvyTjs, 384 
Sripto/xaxeiu, 315 
Opiap-Peveiv, 353 

l8lU>TT)$, 3O7 

lepodvTov, 281 

'Iijo-oCs Xpitrris, XptarAi 

'I^a-ouj, 379, 629 f. 
i/ca^ai y/itpai, 645 
iXaoT^ptoj', 396 
if a re, 281 
iaropelp, 59 

Kadap/xa, 254 
Kadopav, 383 
/caXws iroieir, 52 1 
/ca7r7/Xei'ei^, 354 
Karal3pa^?veiv, 562 
KaTavapKav, 33 1 
KaTapri^euv y 16 1 

Kartxw, 3 8 3 
ko.t£x ov ( to )» '74 
KaTTjxw, 390 
KCLTOTTTpifeadai, 356 
703 



/ 5 / yy7 
704 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. PAUL 



gavffTTipi&fecrOaj., 589 
KOtnatrdai, 163, 2885 405 f« 
KG<j(i.0KpiT0p9%, 544 
ktL&is, 220 

tctipios, 271, 



\a\eiv, \4yct9, 394 
X071KOS, 442 
\67toF, 392 
X6710J, 228 

fi6.fjLfj.rjf 100 
fAapavadd. 325 
fiaprvpiov rod Qeov, 247 
fAecrixTToixov tov <ppa.ytJ.ou, 

534 
pLsraffxrifxaTl^iv, 253, 514 
pLeraTlOeaOai, 1 96 
,wfy ytvUTO, 202 
/AcXtfrnp, 237 
mo/>0^» 5H 
.abpcpuais, 390 
iwarrjpioy, 3 20 
pit) pc\oy La, 565 

F7?TTiOJ, 208 

yop'.nds, 622 • 

£eWa, 502 
I^Xov, 132 

qIkovcjaos, 208 
oi xoXXo/, 407 
6X6kX?70os, 166 
dXoTeX^s, 166 
d^&via, 413 

iraiScrya^ot, 206 f. 
vapaftiafcadai, 129 
Trapa6rjK7), 593 
•7ra#dfcX7?<ris, 60 
irdoeats, 396 
irarpia, 537 
vep<,xa0a.p!J,a t 254 



weptyyfia, 254 
iruxTtveiv, 156 
ir\r)pu)fj.a, 524 
T?\T)po<poptiv, 399 
"jri'd'aaTutor, -289 
TTotpJpe?, 539 
irpeepiTTjs, 575 
irpeafttiTepos, 463 
irpoypa<peiv, 203 
Trpo4xe<r6at, 394 
irpo<r ay uryrj, 400 
vpocnvx^l, 127 
vpotXTdTLS, 189 
TrpoTfjino\rjix\j/La, 199 
irpbawirov, 347 
7T/c>6re/oov(T6), 653 
Trpwros(o), 499 
wpuro? X67OJ, 584 
IL66(av„ 130 
irvpd, 499 
Trvperoi, 499 
7rwpoP»', 356 

pavTio-fxds, 675 

aapntcSs, 249 
©"do/a^os, 249 
cr/tav5aXf£e(*', 272 
<r*cd»'5aXoj' tow aravpod, 

214 
c/auov, l6l 

(TKoX'J^, 664 f. 

CKu^aXov, 518 
o-o^'a, 84, 290, 530 
ffiretpa HefiaaTT), 490 
ffirepp.o\6yos, 143 
artysLv) 160, 294 
<TTlyp,a, 220 

gtoix^ v i 217 
aToix^ov, 208, 561 
ffTopyrf, 386 
<ri»77ei'T)s, 458 
ffwavTiXafifiaveffdai, 42 1 
(ruvetSTjo-ts, 24 



77 



avvMr,fxot, 342 

©•tW^s, 84 
vvvKpiveiv, 248 
sr6poida i/j.avr$, 233 
o~vvrpo<pos, 80 
<rx%«i, 253, 514 
<rw/*a {'slave'), 410 
2wT7j/> Geo?, 595 

TeKvoyovla, 602 
WXeioy, 248 
T<fXos, 278, 433 
to /car' e*/i^, 380 
TJ/iros, 412 



0#ks, 384 

^(aij'^y, frynfo 589 

idpOTTOTeiv, 609 

vtotfeo-ta, 209 

Tids rot) 9>.oD, 56 

Tids 7-771 a7aT7jj oyroO, 556 

^iraJ'Tav, 130 

inrapx*w, 200, 5^4 

iiripa.Kfj.os, 268 f. 

fo. prj&avia, 384 

VTT7)p4rT]S t 79 
VTOKpLTT}*;, IIO 

y?r6o"racrts, 332 
VTTiJirt&fciV, 276 

0eX'>r/5, 635 
<p)),u.t, 268 
tpdbvos (popos, 384 
(pikavdpunrla, 49S, 595 
cppoveiv, 418 
<pp6i>7jcris, 530 
(puprj, 298 

X&r.io~fxa, 289, 413 
Xeiporove'ip, 1 05 

XPW aT ^ lv t 67 
XpiCTtpiropos, 157 

^uXi/c6s, 249, 319 t 






6d£a tu» 6cip irayTtov evc/ca. a/x^v. 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 





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